Zugzwang
by Vampiyaa
Summary: Three/Rose AU; Part Three of the Forever and More series. The Third Doctor is exiled to Earth during an Auton invasion and falls in love with Rose Tyler, and together they struggle against the disapproval of the Gallifreyan High Council and a certain Prentice woman. Can they beat the opposition, or have they found themselves in a zugzwang position?
1. King's Gambit

**Beta: natural-blues**

* * *

Chapter One

King's Gambit

The London Torchwood team — consisting of (from left to right) Jack Harkness, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones and Rose Tyler — was huddled around the clock, looking up at it with hopeful enthusiasm as though they were all situated around a telly watching the football match. It was a minute and a half to five o'clock, and all of their eyes were glued to the second hand cheerfully ticking closer and closer to closing.

"Come on…" Rose muttered, gripping Jack's hand tightly. "No calls, please…" As though she'd jinxed it, the telephone rang shrilly next to her and the whole team groaned with annoyance, Owen even swearing. Rose reluctantly picked it up and muttered, "'Lo?"

"Hello, Miss… Captain Rose Tyler?" said a male voice on the other end, as though reading her name aloud off a paper.

"Speakin'."

"This is the Captain Jimmy Munro of UNIT calling from UNIT field headquarters," the man said briskly. "You and your team have specific assignment summons from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart."

Rose glared daggers at the clock, which only now after she'd received another assignment did it say five o'clock. So much for going home on time for once. All she wanted to do was go back to her flat, play some chess, then haul her arse to her mother's so they could have dinner whilst her little brother Tony wailed and threw mashed potatoes at the wall. At least, that's what'd happened last time.

"Wha' for?"

"To investigate some odd goings-on. Early this morning a shower of about fifty meteorites landed in Essex."

"Landed?" Rose echoed, frowning. "Most meteorites don't even reach the Earth's surface. Usually burn up in the atmosphere, them."

"These didn't," said Munro. "These particular meteorites came down through a funnel of thin, super-heated air about twenty miles in diameter, for which no one has an explanation."

Rose was starting to hope this was UNIT just being paranoid. Maybe she could go home early after all. "There must be an explanation."

"I hope so. We didn't find one last time."

"Last time?" Rose echoed.

"Six months ago, a smaller shower of meteorites, about five or six, landed in the same area."

Rose gaped at the telephone cord. "The odds against two lots of meteorites landin' in exactly the same place must be incredible."

"They are, Miss Tyler," Munro muttered. "They are. The Brigadier specifically summoned for you— apparently you and your team are some sorts of alien experts?"

Thinking back over the last year alone at all the aliens they've encountered, Rose started to chuckle. "You could say that." She sighed. "All right, Munro, we'll be there in about an hour." Hanging up, Rose turned to her team and ignored Owen's glare, as though this was somehow her fault. "All right everyone, here's the sitch. We're going to Essex. Pack your things."

"Yes, Master," quipped Jack, saluting her and shooting both Ianto and Gwen winks as he sauntered to his desk.

Rose rolled her eyes at him and turned away to grimace at her mobile. Jackie would not be pleased that she would have to miss yet another get-together, and most likely Pete would pay the price for it, being the head of Torchwood. Making a mental apology to her father, Rose dialled up her mum and prepared herself for an onslaught of Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler.

She did not disappoint.

* * *

The company car was ready for them in ten minutes (which gave Rose enough time to listen to her mother shout at her) and the drive to Essex was an hour and a half long, due to traffic. When they reached the UNIT building in Essex, the driver ushered Jack, Gwen, Tosh and Ianto out of the car at the first checkpoint, and when Rose made to follow suit she was stopped by a guard.

"Only your team, ma'am."

"Why's that, then?" Rose demanded.

"Orders from the Brigadier. Wants to speak to you personally."

They drove through several more checkpoints, where to her immense annoyance she was searched by two more guards — honestly, did they think Torchwood was out to get them or something? — and by the time Rose was escorted into the UNIT building to meet Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, she was trying not to glare at people.

A man was waiting to greet her with a firm handshake at the end of the corridor as she approached, with dark brown hair and a rather silly moustache. "Ah, good, Miss Tyler. I'm Lethbridge-Stewart. Do come in and sit down, will you?"

Rose managed to smile at him, sitting down in the chair in front of his desk. "Saw that you've upped your safety measures. I was even searched. Do you honestly think the leader of Torchwood would be bringin' in somethin' dangerous? UNIT and Torchwood have been workin' together ever since they were was founded."

"Security," the Brigadier smiled. "Rather amusing, don't you think?" He changed his tune when he saw Rose's starting glare. "No, you don't."

"Why exactly have me an' my team been called here?" Rose asked curiously. "Munro said something about meteorites."

"A topic you enjoy?"

"Love 'em."

"Yes, I know," the Brigadier said. "An _expert_ in meteorites, degrees in astronomy, physics and a dozen other subjects. Only twenty-six and you've already received several awards for your findings, including," he added, eyes twinkling with amusement, "an award in chess. And yet I've been told you grew up in a council estate, am I correct?"

Rose's smile vanished, eyes flashing dangerously. "That's none o' your business."

"Apparently not," the Brigadier said smoothly, taking note of her old accent that still, after all these years, hadn't dissipated into modern English. "The point is, Miss Tyler, you're just the sort of all-rounder I've been looking for."

"An' what does that mean?" Rose said.

"We need your help, Miss Tyler," said the Brigadier quietly.

Rose stood up from her chair, suddenly realising what was going on. "You're tryin' to recruit me into UNIT! S'that why you've called me an' my team down to Essex?"

"Partly," the Brigadier admitted, squirming a bit under Rose's annoyed gaze. "What Munro told you about the meteorites wasn't a hoax, Miss Tyler. This is definitely a case for you and your team. But I also wanted you down here to try and persuade you. You're a fantastic scientist, Miss Tyler, far too good to be stuck simply chasing after aliens."

Rose narrowed her eyes at him. "You believe in aliens, then, Brigadier?"

He laughed bitterly. "Believe? I've met one." The Brigadier clasped his hands in front of him and leaned forward. "Since UNIT was formed, there've been two attempts to invade this planet."

"How come I've not heard of them, then?"

"This was before your time, Miss Tyler," said the Brigadier. "We were very lucky on both occasions. We had help from a scientist with a great experience of other life forms."

"Really?" asked Rose. "Who was this 'genius'?"

"Well, it's all rather difficult to explain. We used to call him the Doctor." Just then the phone buzzed, the noise loud enough to startle Rose a bit, and the Brigadier picked it up with a brisk, "Yes?" Muffled muttering came from the other end, sounding suspiciously like Jack's voice. With a disgruntled look on his face, the Brigadier handed her the phone. "It's for you."

She smiled before lifting the phone to her ear. "Yeah?"

"Rosie," Jack's voice sounded on the other end. "Are you seriously with Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart right now? You lucky doll!"

"Get to the point, Jack," Rose grinned. "Where are you?"

"The UNIT boys sent us to Oxley Wood, where the meteorites were seen crashing."

"Have you found any?"

"None," Jack said disappointedly. "Just some Scottish dude with a bag on his back like he was Santa. Might have just been a drifter. How he got past the guard around the woods, I have no idea."

"Keep lookin'. I'll join you in ten." Handing the phone back to the Brigadier, she gave him a stern look. "I'll help you with the investigation here, Brigadier, but I'm not staying after that. I'm just not interested in security work."

"Security?"

"Producin' invisible ink," Rose said. "That sort of thing."

The Brigadier snorted. "We're not exactly spies here at UNIT."

"Then what d'you do, exactly?" Rose asked.

"We deal with the odd, the unexplained," the Brigadier said, his voice taking on a mysterious tone as if trying to entice her. "Anything on Earth, or even beyond."

Rose chuckled. "Brigadier, that's exactly the same as Torchwood."

"Torchwood was only founded by your father less than twenty years ago," the Brigadier said petulantly, "while UNIT has been around since before you were even an idea."

She smiled sweetly. "Well, looks like you're all set without me, then." The Brigadier's face went slack at his own mistake. "Now if you'll excuse me, Brigadier, I'd like to go and join my team, if it's all the same. It was nice to meet you, sir."

"And you, Miss Tyler," he replied, still looking slightly disgruntled at his slip. "I'll not give up, though, mind you."

"You do that," said Rose dismissively, before turning away and heading back down the corridor.

* * *

An hour later, Rose wished she had stayed in the Brigadier's office. Listening to the man try to coax her over to UNIT's side was better than tramping through the forest, in the middle of a freak heat wave, being eaten alive by flies whilst looking for seemingly-nonexistent meteorite fragments. Being the arse-type that Owen was, he kept snarking at everyone until Tosh looked close to tears, while Jack and Ianto decided to sneak off for a half hour and then come back pretending that they had 'just been searching for the meteorites'. As if.

Since the team had been focusing their efforts mostly on the west end of the forest, Rose decided to float off by herself towards the north end (Owen's attitude was really starting to annoy her). It wasn't until she pushed aside a thicket of brambles that she spotted, with a gasp, a giant royal blue police box, at the base of which was a facedown, unconscious man.

"Oh, my God!" Rose panicked, before shouting out for Jack and the others to come. Hurrying towards the man's side, she checked around him for signs of blood before dropping to her knees next to him and feeling his pulse. It was erratic, but strong. There didn't seem to be any signs of trauma anywhere. Clapping her hands close to his ears to try and wake him, Rose said loudly, "Hello? Sir, are you all right?"

Just as her team jumped through the bushes to her location, the man mumbled incoherently into the grass. She carefully rolled him over so he was facing up, head propped up in her lap. There was no sign of any head wounds or cuts on his face, which was slightly wrinkled and peaceful-looking.

"Sir, are you hurt?" Rose tried again.

His eyebrows scrunched together and he murmured, "Zoe?"

Rose frowned. "Er, no."

He seemed to grumble a bit before drifting back into unconsciousness. Jack whipped out his mobile and rang up the nearest hospital, whilst Tosh and Gwen gasped and Owen remarked, "Geez, Captain, did you bore him to death?"

"He's not dead," Rose said irritably. "Go look for the meteorites, Owen."

"What about that lot?" Owen fumed, pointing to the rest of the team.

"They're not acting like children."

As Owen stomped back, most likely cursing Rose under his breath, Rose leaned forward to shade the man from the glare of the sun, and in doing so was able to catch the faint humming coming from the police box. Frowning, Rose pressed her ear to it, wondering if there was some sort of machine in there making a whirring noise. She pulled her ear away when the medics arrived and hoisted the man onto the stretcher.

Meanwhile, a man called Sam Seeley was digging up a pulsing, plastic polyhedron that he'd found at the crash site, not fifty metres from their position.

* * *

Rose decided not to ride in with the ambulance to the hospital, instead staying behind with her team to continue looking for the meteorites. At least, that was her plan, when barely twenty minutes later the Brigadier himself stomped across the plains with an armada of guards.

"You lot, keep that police box under constant surveillance," the Brigadier snapped to his armada. "Nobody is to be allowed near it, do you understand? Nobody." As the guards stomped up to the police box and surrounded it, gripping their guns, the Brigadier turned to Rose. "You, on the other hand, will be coming with me, if you will."

"An' why's that?" Rose said. "I already said I'm not joinin' UNIT."

"That isn't why, Miss Tyler. I was told it was you who found the man next to this box?" When Rose nodded, he smirked. "That man you found may be the Doctor."

She paused. "The genius bloke who supposedly saved the world twice before, and I quote, 'I was even an idea'?"

"Indeed," the Brigadier muttered, leading her towards a company car. "If it is him, then it may just explain the meteorites…"

* * *

After being driven in to the Ashbridge Cottage Hospital, Rose and the Brigadier were greeted with an onslaught of press, much to her astonishment, as she'd been under the impression that UNIT had a standard policy of keeping things from the public as did Torchwood. However the Brigadier seemed to be just as shocked to see them there as she was, and, nearly drowned out under all the ruckus the press were making, managed to shout out, "If there's a story, you'll be given it later. At the moment I have no comment to make," before getting Mullins to push them back as they entered the hospital corridor with another soldier.

"I'm Munro, we spoke on the phone," the man introduced himself to Rose, shaking her hand.

"How did that lot get onto this?" fumed the Brigadier, before Rose could reply to Munro.

"No idea, sir," Munro said earnestly. "They just appeared like swallows in the spring. Sir, have you put a guard on that police box?"

"Yes. Two men with orders to keep strangers well away." Rose opened her mouth to ask about the apparently important police box, but the Brigadier added before she could get a word in, "Oh, Munro, see that they're issued with live ammunition, will you?"

Munro paled. "Live ammunition? But sir—"

"That's an order, Captain," he snapped.

"I'll see to it, sir," Munro said quietly.

"Good."

"Along here, sir," the captain added, pointing.

"Thank you."

Rose and the Brigadier were led into a hospital room. Rose craned her neck over the Brigadier's shoulder to see a man curled up under crisp white sheets, his face obscured by the white shift he was wearing. A doctor wearing black specs was looking over him but glanced upward at them at Munro's call of, "Doctor Henderson? This is Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and, er..."

"Captain Rose Tyler," Rose introduced herself with a polite smile.

"Well, how's your patient, doctor? Can we see him?" said the Brigadier urgently.

"Well, you can see him, certainly," Henderson said. "He's not making much sense yet."

"What, still unconscious, eh?"

"Most of the time. He has brief moments of consciousness and then slips back again."

"Well, what's actually wrong with him?" Rose asked confusedly.

"I can't say. Never had a patient quite like him before."

"How d'you mean?" she replied, frowning as the Brigadier smirked a little.

"Well, his whole cardiovascular system is quite unlike anything I've ever seen," Henderson said curiously. "And I'm told his blood can't be identified."

The Brigadier, to Rose's surprise, said, "Splendid. That sounds like the Doctor."

It didn't sound 'splendid' to Rose. Nonetheless she followed as the Brigadier stepped over to the man's bedside and rolled him over so his face was visible. Rose glanced at the Brigadier, only to see him frowning. "Do you know him?"

He lifted his head as though in a thoughtful daze, only to frown at her and say almost airily, "What?" Snapping himself out of it, he added, "No, I thought I might do, but he's a complete stranger. I've never seen him before in my life."

Rose opened her mouth to answer when she suddenly felt something brush against her hand and latch on gently, like a baby's hand curling around one's finger for the experience. She glanced down to see light brown eyes peering up at her almost curiously through tired eyelids.

"Ooh," he breathed, smiling gently at her. "You're beautiful."

The Brigadier coughed beside her but Rose paid him no heed. Her cheeks heated up underneath his scrutiny and at his words, and with a slight squeeze to his hand and a gentle smile, she replied softly, "Thank you."

He hummed happily before turning his eyes on the Brigadier. At once he dropped her hand, along with his smile, and he mumbled with a lilting lisp, "Lethbridge-Stewart? My dear fellow, how nice to see you again."

"He knows you, sir," said Munro curiously.

"But he can't do," the Brigadier said with confusion, before leaning over the bloke in the bed. "Look here. Can you hear me? Who are you?"

That seemed to irk the man, because he frowned. "Don't you recognise me?"

"I'm positive we've never met before," said the Brigadier firmly.

The man paused, contemplating this. "Oh dear." He frowned. "Oh, I can't have changed that much, surely? Oh, I must see what they've done to me! Can I borrow... can I borrow a mirror, please?" Rose hastened to dig through her handbag, pulling out the intricate compact hand mirror Jackie had bought her for Christmas one year. "Thank you," he said distractedly, examining his reflection before exclaiming in horror, "Oh no!" He slumped. "Oh, no… well, that's not me at all! No wonder you didn't recognise me. Oh, that face. That _hair_." He started to look a bit cheerier after a while, pursing his lips— it was so reminiscent to Jackie's primping that she had to hide a giggle behind her hand. "Oh, I don't know, though. I think it's rather distinctive, actually. Don't you think?" he added with a chuckle. Taking one look at the Brigadier's irritated look, his half-smile vanished. "No, you don't." The man settled back down and closed his eyes. "Oh anyway, I'm tired. All this exercise and exertion. It's been too much. Have to get some sleep now," he murmured, apparently drifting off.

"Now, just a minute," the Brigadier said furiously. "Wake up, man. Listen to me!"

"I think that's quite enough for the moment," Henderson said briskly, circling the man's bed and leaning over him. "His mind's obviously disturbed. Anyway, I'm afraid he's out again."

"Munro, I want this man brought to London HQ," the Brigadier said firmly, before turning back to Henderson. "When will he be fit to travel?"

"Difficult to say."

"I see." The Brigadier addressed Munro again. "Well, as soon as possible, Munro. In the meantime, carry on the search for these meteorites."

"Very good, sir," Munro replied.

"Is there another way out of here?" he asked Henderson. "I want to avoid the press if possible."

"You an' me both, mate," Rose mumbled, thinking that the last thing she needed was her mum and/or her ex-boyfriend Mickey to get their hands on a photograph of her and the Brigadier on the front page with an alien-conspiracy headline.

"This way," said Henderson, gesturing with his arm out the door.

"Thank you," the Brigadier said.

Henderson led them out the back way, where their car was already waiting for them to take them back to UNIT. When they were situated in the car, Rose asked, "So, that bloke was or wasn't the Doctor? I'm confused."

"I'm not entirely certain," the Brigadier said, frowning at the seat. "He seems to recognise me, but the last time I saw the Doctor, he had dark black hair and a different face."

"And what does that police box thing have to do with anything?"

"That's the Doctor's ship. It travels through time and space."

Rose's head snapped up and she gawked unabashedly at the Brigadier. She had seen some fantastic things working for Torchwood — hell, she'd even been to other planets — but even she had a hard time believing that a raggedy old police box could travel through space, let alone _time. _She scanned over the Brigadier to see if he was kidding in any way, but he looked dead serious. It was official— Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart was certifiably spare.

"Right," said Rose idly. "Okay. And you think this because…?"

"I don't _think,_ Miss Tyler, I know," the Brigadier said firmly, not elaborating any further.

* * *

They set her up at headquarters in a laboratory that looked like it had been put together by children for the set of a school play. Rose called her team to send them home and set to work readying her equipment, before opening the sample case and ooh-ing at what she saw. They definitely weren't meteorites like she'd ever seen before (and she'd seen enough rocks to put a miner to shame); the shards were thin and partially transparent, looking more like plastic than rock. She spent a full hour and a half scanning them, taking samples and mixing them with chemicals before deducing that the so-called 'meteorites' were not only manufactured, but had definitely come from outer space.

The Brigadier decided halfway through to pop in — that was another thing she'd hate if she decided to work for UNIT: nosy Brigadiers — and he informed her of what had transpired in the woods with the Doctor and his team.

"He somehow managed to escape the hospital after nearly being abducted," the Brigadier explained. "Ran straight towards the police box. Scared the guards something good, and they shot at him."

Rose nearly dropped the beaker. "Is he all right?"

"Fine, fine. They didn't hit him, just grazed his head."

"Maybe if you kept your trigger-happy morons in check, that wouldn't o' happened at all," Rose fumed. "The bloke was obviously already hurt an' upset as it is." She turned her back to the affronted Brigadier, muttering, "This is why I hate the army."

The doors opened behind her and two men wheeled in the giant, shabby-looking blue police box, and Rose looked it over. The Brigadier seemed to look at it with something akin to worship, however Rose couldn't find anything remotely fantastic about it except for that faint humming noise it was making.

"Now all you gotta do is find the key," said Rose.

"I've got the key here," said the Brigadier, holding out an unremarkable key. "Henderson found it in the Doctor's hand."

A buzzer sounded, and the Brigadier proceeded to the intercom where a soldier announced the arrival of Major General Scobie. The man strolled in looking for all the world like he owned the place, but what made Rose initially dislike him was the look-over he gave her when the Brigadier introduced her, like she was a piece of eye candy. She kept her cool with a polite, "How do you do?" but desperately wanted to give him a slap a la Jackie Tyler when he called her a 'pretty face'. She hated to break it to him, but this 'pretty face' could kick his arse in less than ten seconds.

Then Scobie exclaimed, "Dear chap, what are you doing with a police box?"

"Well, sir," the Brigadier started uncomfortably.

Rose grinned. "Camouflage, General. It's not really a police box. It's a spaceship."

The Brigadier shot her a glare, but she kept her eyes on Scobie, who seemed momentarily surprised, before tossing back his head with laughter. "A spaceship! A police box that can travel through space! How preposterous!" He wiped his eyes. "You're very witty, Miss Tyler. Nice imagination. I like that in a woman." Rose grimaced at his back as Scobie turned back to the slightly amused Brigadier. "I have matters to attend to. Carry on here with your work... and your spaceship."

With one last wink to Rose, he disappeared. Rose turned back to her work, glaring at a test tube. Scobie reminded her very much of that awful Jimmy Stone. The intercom buzzed again, and the Brigadier answered it once more, only to hear the soldier on the other end tell them that the Doctor had escaped the hospital.

"Oh well, at least he won't get very far," the Brigadier huffed.

"Y'mean before your blokes shoot him again?" Rose muttered.

He glared daggers at her. "I don't find that funny." He turned back to the police box, staring at it intently. "Without this machine, the Doctor's stuck. He can't leave Earth."

"You were about to open it?" prompted Rose, turning around and crossing her arms.

"Yes."

"I think you ought to," Rose said, grinning and adding with humour, "There might be a policeman locked inside."

He gave her another pointed look before sticking the key into the lock. After trying to turn it twice to no avail, the Brigadier pulled it back out and stared at the lock. "That's odd."

"Wrong key," Rose suggested.

"No, it can't possibly be," the Brigadier muttered. "We had to literally pry it out of the Doctor's hands. There's no way it's not the correct key."

Rose put her hands on her hips, regarding the box. "Who is this Doctor bloke to you anyway? You talk about him like he's a genius, an' that he's saved the world twice, but all I've seen is a man, facedown in the dirt, or in a shift callin' me beautiful."

She blushed, and the Brigadier smiled kindly. "The Doctor _is _a genius, and he _has _saved the world twice. I've never heard of him being interested in women before, however. You must be something special."

Rose turned back to her work so the Brigadier couldn't see her flaming cheeks. "'M a former Estates girl who only got where she is because she's got a rich daddy. So says everybody," she added on a mutter. "Only people dunno it's not always been like that."

"Oh?"

"S'a long story," she mumbled, not wanting to spill her story to the Brigadier.

The intercom buzzed yet again, and this time when the Brigadier answered it, the soldier sounded tentative. "Er, sir? The Doctor's on his way up. He's asked for you."

"The Doctor?" he repeated with a frown.

"Yes, sir. He says you know him."

"Show him up at once. How the Devil did he find this place?"

Rose shrugged and was about to turn back to her work when the grey-haired man from the hospital bounded into the room, only this time he was wearing a red-lined cape, a black smoking jacket and a frilly cravat. She stifled a giggle behind her hand, as even the Brigadier looked uncertain about his outfit.

"Ah, there you are, my dear fellow," the Doctor said, bouncing over to the Brigadier. "I expect you're wondering how I found you here?"

"Yes."

The strange Doctor bloke held up a wristwatch, which was making odd beeping noises. "Fortunately I had this with me, you see. It homes in on the TARDIS." He did a double take when he spotted the box. "Oh, there she is!" he added happily, bounding forward and giving the box a pat. "How nice of you to look after her for me. Do you happen to have got the key, by the way?"

"I do, but it won't work."

"Aha! But it will for me."

The Doctor approached the Brigadier expectantly, but the Brigadier took a step back. "Not so fast. I have a lot of questions to ask you."

"My dear Brigadier, it's no earthly good asking me a lot of questions," the Doctor said fondly. "I've lost my memory, you see."

"How do I know that you're not an impostor?"

"Ah, but you don't, you don't. Only I know that." The Doctor hopped over to one of the reflectors and slid it out of its case to check his reflection. "What do you think of my new face, by the way? I wasn't too sure about it myself to begin with. But it sort of grows on you." He smiled and frowned a couple of times, making Rose giggle. "Very flexible, you know. Could be useful on the planet Delphon, where they communicate with their eyebrows." He paused. "Well that's strange. How on Earth did I remember that?"

"All right, all right," the Brigadier hastened, trying to stop the Doctor's rant. "If I accept that you are the Doctor, there are still a lot of things." He seemed to remember Rose was in the room, let alone in existence at all. "Oh, by the way, this is Captain Rose Tyler. You met her in the hospital," he added with a secret smile.

The Doctor glanced over to Rose, only to do yet another double take. His apparently 'new' cheeks flushed slightly pink at the sight of her. "Oh… er, yes. I remember." He waggled his eyebrows a bit, before saying, "That's Delphon for 'how do you do?'" She smiled despite herself, shaking his outstretched hand. "Delighted, Captain Tyler, delighted."

"Rose, please," she said. "What are you a doctor of, by the way?"

"Practically everything, my dear," he said, positively beaming at her. "And you, what are you a captain of?"

Rose grinned her trademark grin, with her tongue poking out at the corner of her mouth, which never failed to make men go slack-jawed. By design, the Doctor's beam dropped with his jaw and even the Brigadier looked a bit dazed. "Well, I can't quite reply with 'practically everything'; just the best team in Torchwood."

"Torchwood?" he echoed, once he'd managed to pick his jaw up off the ground. "Never heard of them."

"An extraterrestrial organisation founded by my father eighteen years ago," Rose said.

"Extraterrestrial? You mean to say you've communicated with non-human life?" The Doctor frowned. "I can't remember if you humans were supposed to meet aliens in this time period."

Rose raised an eyebrow at his _Back to the Future-_like comment. "Er, yeah. We've even been to other planets. Last time we went to Givonia Prime."

The Doctor gaped at her. "But the Givonians despise lesser races!"

Rose tried not to look too irritated, knowing he didn't mean it as an insult. "I beg to differ, Doctor; we established a treaty with them seven months ago."

"Miss Tyler wrote that treaty," the Brigadier added, looking slightly disgruntled at being momentarily forgotten. "She is a brilliant scientist, astrophysicist, ambassador, extraterrestrial expert… which is why we'd love to have her at UNIT," he added, and Rose, who was currently blushing, rolled her eyes.

"And you are how old, my dear?" asked the Doctor, looking awe-struck.

"Twenty-six." Squirming underneath the Doctor's scrutiny and the Brigadier's pleading gaze practically screaming 'please join UNIT', she turned her flaming face away and faced the plastic shards. "Erm, Doctor, mind taking a look at these? Since you're an expert on practically everythin'," Rose added, tongue in teeth again.

"Er…" came out of his mouth at her smile, before he blustered embarrassedly, "V-very well. What exactly are they?"

"We're not certain," said the Brigadier. "From what we can gather, you arrived last night in the middle of a shower of meteorites."

"Did I really? How terribly exciting," he said with a grin, wagging his eyebrows at Rose, who giggled.

"Well, objects from space, at any rate," the Brigadier said, pointing at the shards. "That is what we scavenged from Oxley Wood six months ago during the first meteorite shower. Miss Tyler hasn't been able to identify it."

The Doctor looked them over once. "Plastic?"

"It's not thermo-plastic and neither is it thermo-setting," Rose said, bending low over the shards. "An' there are no polymer chains."

"That's interesting," said the Doctor with wonder, sticking his face so close to hers Rose thought for a moment he was going to kiss her. "I wonder what was inside."

"Inside?" Rose echoed curiously.

"Yes, well, you can tell from the shape this was a hollow sphere," said the Doctor airily, gesturing with his fingers. "I should think the space inside was about three thousand cubic centimetres, wouldn't you?"

As Rose looked at him with a look of astonishment, the Brigadier added, "Do I gather you're going to help us, Doctor?"

"If I do, will you give me the key to the TARDIS?" the Doctor asked innocently.

"Possibly."

"Then go away and let the lovely Rose and I get on with our work, there's a good fellow," said the Doctor cheerfully, ignoring Rose's half-blush half-smirk and the Brigadier's look of affront. "Off you trot."

He opened his mouth to argue, but decided against it and grudgingly left them.

* * *

They worked on trying to identify the plastic-like shards situated before them, with no such luck despite the ever-advancing equipment.

"Are you gettin' a reading?" Rose asked him, as she attached wiring to the plastic.

The Doctor glanced at the machine in front of him. "No."

Rose sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Well, that's it. Can't think of anythin' else we can try."

"Well, don't worry, my dear," he said gaily, patting her hand. "We've done our best."

"I just don't get it," Rose fumed, not willing to give up. "We've tried every method of analysis I can think of an' we still haven't identified a single element!"

"Yes," the Doctor sniffed, glaring daggers at the machine as if it had wronged them somehow. "What results can you expect with this primitive equipment?"

Despite him clearly being rude again, Rose nodded in agreement. "If only we had a lateral molecular rectifier. Saw one of 'em on a mission to Barcelona — the planet, not the city — an' it would probably work here."

"Indeed, I—" the Doctor started to say, before stopping himself and giving her a funny look. "Yes, a lateral molecular rectifier. You're absolutely correct."

She noticed his expression of scrutiny and looked over her shoulder, thinking for a moment that he was looking at someone behind her, but there was no one there. Turning back around, she raised an eyebrow. "An' that's somehow surprising to you?"

"It's just odd that someone from Earth knows of technology that advanced," he muttered. At once the Doctor seized Rose's face with his hands, peering down his nose as though scrutinising her. Ignoring her look of shock, he forced her head to the left and stared hard at a spot underneath her ear. "Well, you're not a Myleian."

"Beg your pardon?" Rose said with annoyance, though she didn't bat his hands away.

He put his face extremely close to hers, so their noses were all but smushed together, staring deeply into her eyes. She felt her face flame. "Pupil dilation normal, so you're not a Korpovian either." He pulled away only to shock her yet again when he pressed his ear to her chest. "Are you perhaps a Venatori?"

"I'm human, and I'd like it if you'd stop feelin' me up, thanks," Rose huffed, starting to get irritated.

"What?" he asked airily, pulling his head away from her breasts, before flushing crimson when he realised how his 'examinations' had come off. "Er, right."

She brushed it off, trying not to look too disgruntled as she turned back to her notes. "S'fine. Just… why d'you think I'm an alien?"

"Twenty-six years old and a supposed expert in… what was it again?"

Rose blushed and looked at the ground. "Um, engineering, physics, astrophysics, astronomy, philosophy, inter-planetary diplomacy… and I play a mean game of chess," she added with another tongue-in-teeth grin.

"Chess," he hummed, beaming. "Chess is fun." Jolting back to seriousness, he said, "My point, young lady, is that I've never met a human quite so brilliant as you before."

"Er, thanks, I think," Rose said uncertainly. "Well, I can assure you I'm completely human." When he continued to stare at her, she squirmed. "Erm, so maybe we'd be able to fashion a lateral molecular rectifier. It'd be crude, but maybe it'd do the trick."

"Luckily, I have one in the TARDIS," he said, snapping his gaze away.

Rose glanced at the stationary police box. "In there?"

"Yes," he nodded enthusiastically. "I'm sure I have one somewhere. But I'm sure I used one some time in the past… or was it the future?"

Rose ignored his time traveller-like comment and put her hand on her hip. "Doctor, are you sayin' you have scientific equipment in there?"

"My dear Rose," he smiled, "I have an entire laboratory. You see, Rose, the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental."

"So… s'bigger on the inside?" she asked, frowning at it.

"Exactly!" the Doctor said excitedly. "And I'm certain I have the proper equipment in my laboratory to identify the elemental markers in those shards of plastic. The only trouble is Lethbridge-Stewart has taken away the key and I can't get inside."

"Well, I s'pose it is your property," Rose shrugged, still a bit uncertain about there being a laboratory inside the box.

"Yes," the Doctor nodded, before turning his eyes on her. His gaze was piercing and curious. "Of course, there is always the possibility that you might be able to persuade him to part with it…"

"You askin' me to bribe the Brigadier?" Rose asked, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at him.

"If you must," he shrugged, "although it'd be lovely if you'd simply ask. And we do need the equipment."

Rose bit her lip, looking over the cape-wearing Doctor bloke. Sighing, she said, "All right, I'll give it a go. But if he says no, it's his decision, yeah?"

"Agreed," the Doctor all but beamed, before bouncing over to her and giving her the tightest hug she'd ever been in. "Off you trot, then!"

After he released her, she gave him an odd look before obediently leaving the laboratory. When Rose reached the Brigadier's office, she knocked and entered only to see him from the doorway in conversation with a white-faced, shaken-looking man.

"Yes?" the Brigadier said.

"Can I have a word with you, Brigadier?" Rose asked.

He waved a dismissive hand. "Not now, I'm busy."

"This is sor' of important," insisted Rose. "The Doctor thinks—"

"Miss Tyler," the Brigadier interrupted, looking irked, "your work in this laboratory is part of one big exercise. You'll have to be patient." Turning back to the stricken man, he said gently, "You say this, er, creature was armed?"

Leaning huffily against the doorjamb, Rose bit the inside of her cheek to stop from snapping at the Brigadier as the man replied on a whisper, "It took off its hand…" She went rigid when she spotted the key on the edge of the Brigadier's desk. "… and there was a sort of tube, and the whole of the arm appeared to be hollow…" With a sideways glance at the other people in the room, Rose reached towards the key. "… Well, you should see the hole it blasted in the wall!"

Slipping the key into her palm, Rose backed out of the room as discreetly as possible and returned to the laboratory. Handing the Doctor the key, she gave him a look that clearly said 'you'd better be grateful'. Apparently he was— he swept her up into a delighted embrace and even spun her a little. She wondered if he was always this hug-prone.

"I'll have you know I had to steal this," Rose told him pointedly.

"Oh dear. I'm afraid he's going to be awfully cross with you," the Doctor told her, as he headed towards the box thing, key in hand.

"You'll just have to be quick, then," Rose quipped. She frowned when the Doctor stuck the key and turned it easily, opening the doors. "It didn't turn when the Brigadier tried to open it."

"Well, that's because the lock has a metabolism detector," said the Doctor idly.

"So, it'll only open for you, then?" Rose said, grinning at him with her tongue caught between her teeth.

He stared hard at her mouth, looking slightly dazed. "Er, yes… indeed."

Just as the Doctor clambered into the box and shut the door behind him, the Brigadier stormed into the lab looking livid. "Miss Tyler, where's that key?" While she tried not to look too sheepish, the Brigadier approached the police box. "You've given it to him."

"He needed some equipment," Rose insisted, not looking at him.

"Equipment? I had no idea you could be so gullible. That's an excuse. We shan't see him again."

"What d'you mean?"

"Listen," the Brigadier said simply, looking expectantly at the box.

They waited for a full five minutes, with nothing happening. During that time frame, the Brigadier's expression grew more and more inquisitive. Just then the Doctor clambered out of the police box, holding an armful of a heavy metallic box, looking slightly confused himself.

"Oh, Brigadier!" he said, almost dazedly. "Erm, do not blame Rose, I simply needed—"

"Equipment, yes, she told me," the Brigadier interrupted, narrowing his eyes at the Doctor. "Why didn't you leave in your ship?"

"Leave?" he said airily, as though the thought had never occurred to him. "Why would I do that? I promised to help, so I will." Gesturing with his occupied finger for the smiling Rose to follow, he set the metal box on the workbench. "Hook it up, won't you, dear?"

Rose obediently plugged in the necessary wiring to the rectifier. The Doctor clipped one end to the plastic and bent over the box expectantly. The Brigadier frowned when he groaned in annoyance. "Not even the lateral molecular rectifier can identify the elemental structure of this device!"

The Brigadier couldn't help but notice the Doctor visibly relax when Rose patted him on the arm, but didn't comment on it. "Isn't there anything else?"

"I've tried to help you the best way I can," sniffed the Doctor. "But I need more evidence. I need more to go on."

"Well, I think I may be able to help you," said the Brigadier. "I was just interviewing a man called Ransome. Perhaps you'd find some of what he's witnessed useful…"

* * *

Rose accompanied the Doctor to the Brigadier's office, where Ransome told his tale about his forced resignation from a doll-making company called Auto Plastics by his former partner and current head of the company, Hibbert, and the 'living plastic man' with a hand that opened and fired at him when he snuck into the factory to investigate. The Doctor suggested a visit to Auto Plastics— however, soon after Munro introduced them to Sam Seeley, a local man who'd found one of the 'meteorites' and hidden it in his home. They hurried over to his abode, only to find his house destroyed, his wife unconscious on the ground outside and an honest-to-goodness plastic man walking about. The Brigadier's men shot at it until it fled, while Rose bent over to tend to Mrs. Seeley and the Doctor examined the pulsing red polyhedron that Sam had hidden in a trunk.

They brought the globe back to the lab, where the Brigadier left them alone as he went to investigate the Auto Plastics factory by himself. Working with the Doctor was engaging and fun. He was energetic and bounced around the lab so much it was a wonder he didn't knock anything over. He also seemed to have very little or no concept of personal space. She wasn't certain whether that was because he was that into his work, or if it was just him— all she knew was that it started to become natural to find his face stuck close to hers when they were looking at the same test tube or file, or have his hip bumping into hers as they worked on the same concoction, or even have him pressed to her side on occasion. As it happens, Rose was finally by herself for all of five minutes when the Doctor bustled off to get something else from the laboratory, hooking up the globe to something that looked like an EEG, and the moment he returned he was looming over her shoulder again.

"D'you mind?" Rose grumbled, once he'd finally crossed the line by all but plastering himself to her back and resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Hm? Not at all," he said confusedly, and it was so cluelessly adorable she just had to laugh. After pretty much wrapping his arms around her to reach the results and holding it out in front of them, he exclaimed, "Ooh, look at that!"

"Have you got something?" asked Rose, trying not to flush as he practically spooned her from behind.

"Yes! This device," he said, pointing to the EEG-thing, "measures mental activity. It appears that in there we have what one might loosely call a brain."

"Y'mean there's some form of intelligence inside that globe?" Rose said, gaping at the pulsing polyhedron.

"Yes. You know, it's as I suspected. This globe is only a container. I wonder whether we can communicate with it." He dropped the notes and unwound himself from her, bouncing around the table and nearly knocking over a tray of test tubes. "Set it to fifty megacycles, Rose. If we can establish the frequency on which it operates—"

The machine sparked at once with a bright flash and a loud bang, coupled with a flickering of fire and Rose's loud, "Ouch!"

"Oh dear," said the Doctor, blinking.

"We overloaded the circuit, I think," Rose said, cradling her burnt finger and blowing away the smoke.

He frowned at her and managed to manoeuvre around the tables without bumping into them for once. "Let me see." To her immense surprise, after grabbing her hand and staring intently at the shiny burn on her finger, he promptly stuck her finger in his mouth and swirled his tongue around it. He seemed so intent with what he was doing he didn't notice Rose's jaw had hit the floor. After taking it out of his mouth with a pop and all but handing it back to her — _her own finger _— he said jovially, "Better?"

She gawked at him, and his grin slid into a confused frown as though he had no idea he'd just stuck her finger into his mouth. Upon collapsing into a fit of giggles and having to lean against the worktable to keep upright, she shook her head at him and choked out, "You are so _weird_!"

He actually had the gall to look affronted. "Am not!"

"Y'just stuck my finger in your mouth!" Rose giggled, wiping her eyes. She regarded him with a tongue-in-teeth smile. "Blimey, you really are alien, aren't you?"

The Doctor was still frowning at her but nodded, just as the Brigadier stomped in looking angry. "What is it?" he asked, as though he hadn't just sucked on Rose's finger.

"I've just got word back from Scobie," he muttered. "He's not letting us raid the factory. _And _Ransome's gone missing."

"What are you gonna do now?" Rose asked, still grinning over their little escapade.

"Regarding Scobie, there's not much I can do, except go over his head," the Brigadier said thoughtfully, before nodding. "Yes, I'll get on to the Home Secretary and if I don't get him to revoke that order, I'll go to UNIT headquarters in Geneva."

"That's going to take time," the Doctor said.

The Brigadier scowled. "The old fool. Just because he feels flattered they made a facsimile of him."

The Doctor's head snapped up. "Facsimile? Of General Scobie?"

"A plastic replica, yes," the Brigadier replied. "Apparently, they make these things for Madame Tussauds. It's one of their sidelines."

Plastic. Rose's eyes widened and the Doctor gasped, "Oh my goodness. The waxworks."

"The unidentifiable plastic, the consciousness inside it, the factory, the living plastic man we saw…" Rose said with shock. "They're actual _plastic_ beings!"

"And they've just recreated an important figurehead in national security in plastic," the Brigadier gasped, catching on.

"I think it's time we visit Madame Tussauds," the Doctor said grimly.

* * *

In the crowded display room named 'BAD WOLF EXHIBIT' of Madame Tussauds wax museum, Rose felt edgy being surrounded by the famous plastic figures that seemed to follow her with cold, lifeless eyes.

"Well, I think this is the right room," the Doctor said, staring at a plastic replica of Eisenhower intently. When she didn't answer, he turned around curiously. "Rose?"

Rose edged away from the almost angry-looking Lincoln replica. "What?"

He frowned and turned away from Eisenhower to take her hand. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, s'just… never did like wax replicas," Rose shuddered, gripping his hand back. "Always used to think that, if you turned around, they'd follow you. And," she laughed hollowly, "now I know they actually do."

"I'll protect you," he declared bluntly, not noticing Rose's shocked blush. "Do you recognise any of these people."

"Uh, yeah, 'course," Rose said, glancing around. "Think all that group are top civil servants." She frowned. "That's odd. They're all Government types. There aren't any astronauts, famous personalities— y'know, people like that."

"Yes," the Doctor conceded. As a bearded attendant walked past them, he turned to him. "Oh, excuse me?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I understand these figures aren't made of wax. Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right," the attendant said. "These are plastic. It's an entirely new process."

"Are they supplying any more or is the tableau complete now?"

"Oh, they're coming in with them all the time, sir. They brought that fellow in just this morning."

The attendant pointed, and Rose gasped at the still, fantastic replica of the general. "General Scobie!"

As the attendant swanned off, the Doctor pulled Rose by her hand closer to the Scobie facsimile, examining it closely. Rose couldn't help but suppress a snort at the thought of the Doctor being in Scobie's personal space as well. "Rose, if you were making a model of someone, would you put a wristwatch on it?"

"Dunno, yeah, if it had to look really authentic," Rose said.

"Yes," he nodded. "Would you go to the trouble of winding it up and keeping it at the correct time?" Straightening up, he looked at her earnestly. "I think you and I had better have a word with Lethbridge-Stewart."

Rose agreed— however, when the Doctor rang up the Brigadier's office on a pay phone outside Madame Tussauds, he got Munro instead saying the Brigadier was out. Instead, the Doctor and Rose decided to wait until the museum's closing time to investigate. Throughout the whole while he didn't let go of her hand — she didn't comment, because she'd seen aliens do stranger things than that — and upon pulling her back into the museum, he yanked her behind one of the blue curtains behind the replica of George Washington. And yet again, he invaded what little space she had hiding behind the curtain by all but pulling her into the tightest embrace she'd ever been in.

Knowing she wouldn't be heard over the bustling of the visitors outside, Rose hissed, "Are you always this handsy?"

"We have to hide, you know," he said simply, even though there was a good foot and a half of extra space.

Rose opened her mouth to point that out, but she stopped herself when she realised that, underneath her palms she had pressed to his chest, there was a double heartbeat. She stared at his chest. "You have two hearts!"

"Yes," he said, sounding confused.

"What—?" she started to say, but the voices outside were starting to die down so she silenced herself.

Sufficed to say, it was the longest hug Rose had ever been in, but finally after several hours of trying not to fall asleep to the gentle thrum of his two hearts the lights turned off and the sound of footsteps faded to silence. Even as he unravelled his grip from her, he still grabbed her hand as though it were as natural as breathing and tugged her out from behind the curtain.

"I don't like this," Rose muttered, glancing uneasily at the plastic Scobie.

"Oh, there's nothing to be afraid of," said the Doctor, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "They're only dummies. I think. I'm sure," he added hastily, seeing her look. Maybe it was the fact that she'd called him out on his last escapade, but he hesitated before chastely kissing her on the forehead. Her face burned as he pulled back (and judging from the slow reddening of his face, so was his) but the gesture was so like what Mickey or even Tony would do that she just had to smile fondly at him. He actually visibly relaxed, as though deflating like a balloon threatening to pop, before closely examining Scobie again. "What do you make of them, Rose?"

"Are they plastic?"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure they are," the Doctor nodded.

"But when you talked about the watch, you meant that this is the real General Scobie," Rose said, pointing to the 'replica'.

He nodded again. "Yes, and his plastic facsimile is walking around somewhere. Now just—"

Footsteps started, making Rose's already stuttering heart nearly fly out of her mouth. "Someone's coming!"

"Quick, back behind the curtain!" the Doctor hissed, ushering her behind the curtain again and clamping her to him once more.

The footsteps grew closer and closer to them, and Rose could swear they were right in front of them, until they all but stopped. A male's voice asked, "What's wrong?"

"There is an alien life form somewhere near. I can sense it," said a gruffer, more suspicious voice, and Rose shot the Doctor a look that he frowned at, as though wondering why it was his fault.

"There's only you and me here, and the facsimiles, and Scobie," the first man said.

A pause, before the second man muttered, "Scobie… Yes. Open the door."

There was a long silence, before the clattering sounds of the main doors being opened started. The Doctor frowned at the curtain, somehow managing to look earnest while still holding Rose like a teddy bear.

"What do you have to do to activate them?" the first man asked.

"Nothing," sniffed the second. "They know it is time."

Rose gaped into the Doctor's chest as the sounds of multiple footsteps, dozens of them, began to echo through the display room. She heard the Doctor say something quietly in another language that was so beautiful Rose wished to hear more of it, despite knowing what he'd just said was probably a swear.

"Where are they going?"

"To take their places. It is time for them to begin work."

As the shuffling footsteps of the walking facsimiles faded, so did that of the two men, along with the sound of the doors closing. The Doctor whipped his arms off of her and poked his head out from the curtain. Of the entire tableau, only Scobie and a few of America's presidents — those who were long dead — remained. The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her out from behind the curtain.

"_What are you doing here_?" gasped out the voice of the first man, as he rounded the corner. Rose nearly jumped out of her skin, and the Doctor's hand tightened around hers instinctively. "You shouldn't—"

"Shush," the Doctor hissed.

"Channing will—" the man tried again.

"Shush, shush, shush!" the Doctor demanded, so like Tony having a temper tantrum Rose wouldn't have been surprise if he stomped his foot. "If you tell Channing that we're here, the Autons will kill us, as I think they killed your friend Ransome."

The man blinked confusedly, looking almost dazed. "Ransome? I had to dismiss him, because Channing said—"

"Channing is controlling your mind," the Doctor interrupted. "You must resist him. Channing is your enemy. The enemy of the entire human race!"

"Channing is my partner. New policy," the man mumbled.

"Now listen to me, Hibbert," the Doctor said sternly. _Oh, that's Hibbert_, Rose thought to herself. "You've got to get away from Channing. Get away and think. Now, come to UNIT. I can help you."

"Hibbert!" shouted the second man's voice, the one who could only be Channing. The Doctor and Rose didn't have time to jump back behind the curtain but stayed stock still just out of view as Channing stormed into the room. "What are you doing?"

With a sideways glance at the statue-like Doctor and Rose, Hibbert muttered, "I was just checking."

"There is nothing to check," said Channing, voice almost monotone. "We are finished here."

As Channing stepped out of the room again, Hibbert gave them another terrified glance before hurrying after his partner. They waited until they were certain Channing and Hibbert had properly left before hurrying out of Madame Tussauds and rang up a taxi.

* * *

He didn't let go of her hand all the way through the drive back to UNIT field HQ— she wasn't entirely certain he noticed (the Brigadier did, however, when they walked into his office and he still didn't let go, and spent the first ten minutes of the Doctor's heated explanation smirking and staring at Rose like she was something fantastic).

"It's the facsimiles, Brigadier," the Doctor was saying urgently. "They're moving. They've just left the waxworks."

"You've got to act quickly, Brigadier, or else it'll be too late," Rose added. "By tomorrow—"

"By tomorrow, they will have taken over the key positions in the entire country," the Doctor interrupted. "Now you've got to move against that factory now!"

The Brigadier nodded seriously, turning to the telephone and punching in numbers. Rose turned to the Doctor. "We've gotta find some way of stopping the facsimiles when we face 'em."

The Doctor nodded earnestly. "What have you in mind?"

Rose thought for a moment. "Well… the only reason these things are walkin' round is 'cos of their collective consciousness, yeah? If we could somehow block the signal—"

"They'd be nothing but inanimate plastic!" the Doctor finished for her excitedly, before grabbing her face and smacking a kiss on her forehead. "Brilliant! I have just the thing in the TARDIS!"

With one last glance at the frustrated-looking Brigadier, Rose allowed herself to be yanked out of the office and back into the laboratory.

* * *

It was well after five in the morning, and Rose was about ready to take a kip amongst the mess of wires the Doctor had cobbled together to make a signal jammer. They'd been at it for nearly ten hours, and Rose had already been up the night before settling yet another dispute between the Rolyark and the Kraylor.

"… and a red… here it is," the Doctor was muttering to himself, oblivious to Rose nearly nodding off against the table. "Hold onto those for a moment, won't you?" He held out a bundle of wires for Rose to take, frowning at his work when she didn't. "Rose?"

He lifted his head, face falling into shock when he saw her asleep with her head resting on her arms, which were crossed over the table. Setting the wire bundle back down on the table, he stared at her for a moment before chuckling. She looked like a child when she slept, mouth open slightly and lower lip sticking out in a pout, eyelashes fluttering with whatever dream she was having. How positively charming. He reached over to nudge her awake, but thought better of it and instead circled the table, scooping her up bridal style and carrying her into the TARDIS. Brilliant and helpful ship that she was, the TARDIS opened the doors for him and arranged herself so that the only door leading out of the console room was a cream white one that he didn't recognise— it wasn't the guest room, where he'd intended to put her. He opened his mouth to inquire but shut it abruptly when Rose wriggled in his grip and mumbled something. With as good a shrug as he could muster with an armful of Captain Rose Tyler, he nudged the new door open with his hip.

The Doctor was greeted with an onslaught of pink, white and gold. He frowned at the colour scheme, only to realise it did sort of match Rose's style— he nearly dropped her at the realisation. The TARDIS intended this to be Rose's room. Stomach churning, he set her down on the pulled-back pink duvet and tugged it over her, before high-tailing it out of there and scowling at the time rotor. Bit in over her head, didn't she think, making a room for Rose Tyler as though she had already agreed to be his companion? The TARDIS replied with the mental equivalent of a shrug and a 'isn't this what you want?' Ooh, it would be lovely to have Rose Tyler as a companion! Maybe once they were finished with the Auton nonsense, he'd take her to Delphon.

Smiling, he bounced back out of the TARDIS to continue working on the signal disrupter.

* * *

Two hours later, Rose woke in an unfamiliar room, and yelped aloud in surprise.

"Calm yourself, Rose, it's just me!" the Doctor said with alarm, shielding himself as though expecting her to pummel him.

She sat up and opened her mouth to ask where she was, but the Doctor suddenly burst into laughter. "Wha'?"

"You look like a mad scientist," he giggled— yes, _giggled_.

Rose tried to scowl at him but failed, grinning. "S'not funny." Forcing down her hair, she swept her eyes over the room. "Where the sodden hell am I?"

"The TARDIS."

She gave him a funny look. "I'm in the blue box thing?"

"Yes, you're in the 'blue box thing'," he huffed. "Now up you go. The signal disrupter is ready and the Brigadier is calling on us."

Rose tossed the lovely duvet off of her, following him out into a barren, roundel-covered console room and out the doors into the UNIT laboratory. Turning back to the TARDIS, she took a moment to marvel that she had actually been _in _that tiny box, in a not-so-tiny bedroom next to an enormous console room. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said it was bigger on the inside.

The Brigadier was in the corner, shouting into the telephone. "Are you sure? Well, get on to the police, man! Try the army! Well, keep trying!"

The Doctor looked grim. "It's started, hasn't it?"

"Yes, all over the country. Window dummies coming alive, attacking police stations, barracks, communication centres…"

"The radio's dead as well," the Doctor added, before looking at them both sternly. "Now look, you two, we haven't got much time."

"What if it doesn't work?" Rose asked.

He gave her yet another look. "Well, of course it's going to work."

"What will work?" the Brigadier said curiously.

"Rose and I have devised a weapon that we can use against them. Well, it's not very efficient, I know, but it's the best that we can do. And then you've got to take us to the security area of that factory."

"Well, how can I?" the Brigadier muttered. "I can't even contact my support platoons."

"Well, how many men can you raise?" the Doctor asked impatiently.

"Just my headquarters staff."

"Well then, that'll have to do, won't it?"

* * *

The Brigadier managed to rustle up his remaining troops and drive them over to Auto Plastics in less than an hour. As they drove, Rose couldn't help but hide her face in her hands when she saw the walking army of window dummies shooting people in the streets, and the Doctor saw fit to sling an arm over her shoulder to calm her. Once there, they circled to the back, Rose with arms full of the heavy signal jammer, and the Doctor fitted a small piece of explosive into the lock and lit the fuse.

"Careful now," he said gently to Rose, shielding her just before it blew open the lock.

They scrambled inside and were halfway up the fire escape when they heard marching behind them. Whirling around, they saw a squadron of army soldiers. Rose would have sighed with relief, were it not for the shiny-skinned plastic Scobie leading them.

"Brigadier Stewart!" the not-Scobie shouted. "You and your men are under arrest!"

As the squadron behind him raised their guns, the Brigadier shouted, "This isn't General Scobie! Now, listen to me!"

"Order your men to lay down their arms, Brigadier, or they will be made to do so," continued not-Scobie.

The Doctor stepped forward. "Perhaps I can settle this argument? I mean, as to whether this is really General Scobie." Walking up to Rose, he plugged one end of a cable into the signal disruptor and hopped down the fire escape holding the other end, attached to which was a small reflecting dish and antenna. "General Scobie, would you be kind enough to say a few words into the microphone?" he added, holding it near not-Scobie's face— Rose stifled a giggle.

"What sort of foolery is this?" not-Scobie demanded.

"Switch on, Rose!" the Doctor shouted, and with a quick flick of the switch on Rose's part not-Scobie collapsed with a cry, facedown on the pavement.

"You've killed him!" Munro gasped.

"I don't think so," sniffed the Doctor, straightening up. "You see, he was never really alive."

With a push of his foot, the Doctor rolled not-Scobie's over face up, and the army gasped with shock and disgust— what had once been General Scobie's face was now a blank plastic visage. "It may be difficult to grasp but that's the situation we've got to deal with," said the Brigadier firmly. "You will place your men under my orders, is that clear?"

"Very good, sir."

The Doctor hopped back up the fire escape and pulled Rose by her hand into the factory. "Doctor, where are we going?" Rose asked.

"If we're quick, my dear, we can save everybody a lot of trouble," the Doctor muttered.

They battled their way past a few patrolling Autons, the Doctor leading her deeper into the factory. When they reached the control room, the Doctor quietly ordered Rose to hide behind the door and entered by himself.

"You're too late," said Channing coolly, when the Doctor entered.

"On this planet, there is a saying that it is never too late," the Doctor huffed, before strolling towards a container holding something that looked like a sticky spider web with an eyeball inside it. "Good gracious! What on Earth is this thing?"

"A life form perfectly adapted for survival and conquest on this planet."

"Is that what you look like on your own planet?"

"No. We have no individual identity."

"So this thing," the Doctor said, peering at the sticky mess, "is a sort of collective brain, nervous system?"

"Humanly speaking, yes," replied Channing.

"Oh, but I'm not human," the Doctor said cheekily, and Rose almost snorted. "So, if you live as a group, you can be destroyed as a group, surely?"

"You cannot destroy us," sniffed Channing.

"I destroyed your facsimile of Scobie, therefore I can destroy all of you."

"No one has the power to destroy us, not even you. We are indestructible."

"To coin yet another Earth phrase, 'wanna bet?'" The Doctor waved the cable at Channing threateningly. "You see, Mr. Channing, with this device I can eliminate you."

"_No one can destroy the Nestenes_!"

With the hasty turn of a dial on the Nestene Consciousness' container, Channing gave the Doctor one last glare before running away. Rose peered around the corner, only to see the Doctor had dropped the cable in alarm and was pounding on the controls of the now steaming and opened container.

"_Switch on, Rose_! _Rose, switch it on_!" he shouted.

Rose continued jiggling the switch, but nothing was happening. "_It must be the wrong frequency_!" Rose cried, when nothing was happening.

With an audible groan, the Doctor flung himself from the fogged container and began fiddling with the controls. Rose hurled herself into the room to snatch up the cable, but before she could run back out of the room, a slimy green tentacle wrapped itself around her ankle and dragged her backward with a shriek. She heard the Doctor's shout of, "ROSE!" and kicked at it to no avail, only to have another half dozen tentacle things snack round her body like an anaconda.

"Doctor," she choked out, when one slipped around her neck and started slowly crushing her windpipe.

"HOLD ON, ROSE, HOLD ON!" he was shouting, sounding terrified but keeping his eyes locked on the signal disrupter as he tried raising the frequency.

It was then that she remembered the knife in her back pocket. Mentally thanking standard Torchwood protocol, she wriggled enough to manoeuvre her arm behind her and, upon grabbing the hilt, tore the blade up through the many layers of tentacles. The thing in the container shrieked in agony as its tentacles fell to the ground, and Rose rolled out of the way just in time when another set of tentacles attempted to pummel her into the floor.

"NOW, ROSE!" the Doctor screamed, and Rose snatched up the fallen cable again and pointed it straight at the tentacles.

The container exploded in a shower of sparks, and the tentacle things receded back, making a rather sickening groaning sound. Rose didn't even have time to sit up and watch before the Doctor was by her side in an instant, looking horrified. "Are you all right? Are you hurt? Do you need medical attention? Anything broken? Is—?"

"Doctor," she yelled, stopping his gob. "'M fine, yeah? Calm down."

He flushed and helped her up. "How did you make it let go?" Rose held up her slime-covered knife, and he gaped. "Since when did you have a knife?"

"Standard Torchwood protocol Bad Wolf Rho," Rose grinned, tongue in teeth. "Always have a knife stashed in your back pocket. Comes in useful in times like this… and as one of my team members said, it gives blokes an excuse to look at my bum," she added, laughing.

He chuckled, grinning reverently at her. "Rose Tyler, you just saved the world."

"Think you may have had a hand in it," Rose said, bumping her hip against his.

"Just a tad," he winked, grabbing her hand and walking out of the factory with her.

* * *

Now that the Autons were disabled, the drive back to UNIT was slower since they kept running over plastic dummies lying in the streets. When they did reach UNIT, the Brigadier demanded to know what happened, and the Doctor and Rose hastened to explain. The Doctor went into a long and proud rant about how Rose was taken captive by the Nestene Consciousness, making Rose sound like she all but wrestled the thing into submission, until she was flushing so much she had to hide her face in her hands. The Brigadier smirked at her before asking, "These Nestenes… will they try again?"

"Possibly," said the Doctor. "They're telepathic, so they certainly know what happened."

"If they do decide to launch a second attack, I hope we can count on your help again?"

"Perhaps," sniffed the Doctor. "You may call on me if this does happen again, but in the meantime, I'll be off."

"Where will you go?" Rose asked, feeling a disappointed pang that her time with this silly Doctor was over.

He paused, giving her a thoughtful look. "Oh, you know, here and there. I've the whole of the universe at my disposal you know. And…" His feet suddenly became very interesting, "I don't suppose… you'd like to see it?"

Rose's mouth fell open. "Are you askin' me to come with you?"

"Maybe," he mumbled.

She chuckled a little at his response, but her smile fell when she remembered her team. "I… I _can't_. I'm a captain, an' I've got responsibilities…"

"But I could take you to Delphon and Emrilon, or to the edge of the universe and back, and still have you home for dinner!" he insisted, wringing his hands nervously.

"Time machine," Rose remembered aloud, laughing lightly. Inhaling deeply as though steeling herself, she beamed at the Doctor. "Yeah, all right."

The Brigadier watched with an amused smile as the Doctor grinned and lit up like a Christmas tree, grabbing her hand and hauling her into the blue box. He listened to the grinding sounds of the TARDIS dematerialising, wondering if he'd ever see them again—

— until the grinding stopped, replaced with the muffled sound of an explosion, and the doors flew open, steam pouring from the entrance. A distressed-looking Doctor tumbled out, looking stricken with shock. "Oh Rassilon be damned. They've trapped me here!"

**A/N: First chapter of the third installment of the Forever and More series :) This chapter was based heavily on the Spearhead From Space (if you haven't seen it, you should) so any recognisable dialogue in this story is taken from their, and © BBC and Robert Holmes. The next two chapters will be non-canon, though ;) **

**The King's Gambit is an extremely aggressive opening chess move (look it up for specifics) and this chapter layout is based on that move. All chapters in this story are based off of chess move layouts.**


	2. Middlegame Exchange

**Beta: **My friend/ex **Lucien**, because it's his birthday and he wanted to :)

* * *

Chapter Two

Middlegame Exchange

In the last two months that she'd known the Doctor, Rose had always known he was handsy. He butted into her personal space without knowing it and seemed to want to hold her hand more often than her three-year-old brother did. Yes, he had an older-looking face — or _distinctive, _as he'd describe it — but Rose was beyond caring about looks when there was a charming and equally brilliant man placing his hands on her waist in twenty second intervals. Rose was used to having his face hovering next to hers as she worked, though that didn't stop her from fantasising about turning her head to the side, just a smidge, and stealing a snog.

What she'd never expected was that one day, her fantasies would come true, only it would be the Doctor being the initiator, and that in less than a minute she'd be snogged senseless by him, hoisted up by her bum onto a chess table and having her legs spread by his knee.

Definitely not something she'd expected.

* * *

When the Doctor had sent Rose to fetch the key, he'd had every intention of leaving. The prospect of being stuck in one place and time had made his stomach churn; however, one tongue-in-teeth grin on her part sent him spiralling into doubt. He'd proceeded into the TARDIS anyway, but when the door closed behind him and he sauntered up to the console, hands hovering over the controls, he found himself thinking about the brilliant little blonde waiting outside for him. She was a mystery, that Rose Tyler— she intrigued him, made him want to understand her. He wondered how she managed to get his brain to short-circuit whenever she sported that smile. And she would most likely hate him if she found out he'd tricked her into getting the key so he could leave. Somehow, that prospect didn't sit well with him.

He'd reached out to the controls again, but gave up when he froze a second time. Grumbling to himself about being stuck like a fly to a spider's web, he stomped into the laboratory and heaved up the lateral molecular rectifier. When he found the Brigadier on the other side, fully expectant of him to be trying to escape (sharp man, that Lethbridge-Stewart) he pretended to be affronted and not regretting his decision.

But one delighted smile from Rose Tyler made him decide he'd done the right thing.

* * *

When Rose allowed herself to be yanked into the box by her hand and stood back, watching the utterly delighted Doctor do a silly dance around the console while pushing buttons, she expected to be whisked off to some previously unknown planet as promised. What she didn't expect was the giant explosion of sparks from the console, the steam flooding the room and nearly choking her, and being tossed to the ground like a rag doll. Inside the smoke, over the fading grinding and hissing sounds, she heard the doors open and the Doctor tumble to the ground and wail, "Oh Rassilon be damned. They've trapped me here!"

Rose tried to get up, but the fog was so thick she couldn't see where she was and ended up bonking her head on something hard. When she grunted out in pain, the Doctor's hand found hers in the smoke and manoeuvred her to save harbour in the laboratory. The Brigadier was staring at them like they'd turned into giant slugs, but one look at the Doctor told her why— he looked like a mad scientist with his hair sticking up and a streak of ash across his cheek, and Rose imagined she didn't look any better.

"What just happened?" the Brigadier asked curiously.

The Doctor actually stomped his foot, like a child having a temper tantrum. "They've changed the dematerialisation codes! I've been exiled, by Rassilon!"

"Who did?" Rose said, sliding a comforting hand onto his shoulder.

He visibly deflated at her gesture, staring at his shoes. "My people. The Time Lords. Let's just say the last time we met, it wasn't under good circumstances." He glanced at the smoking TARDIS and his face hardened into a furious glare. "How _dare_ they touch my TARDIS? She's _mine_!"

"Calm down, Doctor," Rose soothed, now gripping his arm— once again he relaxed. In her best motherly voice — the one she usually gave to Tony when he was upset — she added, "Explain it, from the beginning."

"Where to start?" mumbled the Doctor. "I barely remember any of it as it is." This was obviously a deflection tactic and a downright lie, but since it seemed to pain him, Rose didn't push. "All I know is that the Time Lords are punishing me. They've exiled me to Earth, in this time period, and changed the dematerialisation code on my TARDIS so that I won't be able to use her to leave."

"For how long?" the Brigadier asked.

Sticking out his lower lip, the Doctor seized Rose's hand as though using it for comfort. "I haven't any idea. Most likely a century or two."

"Century?" Rose repeated, blinking.

"Or two," the Doctor nodded seriously, oblivious to her confusion and the Brigadier's look of incredulity. "Either way, the TARDIS is in need of repairs and I'm stuck." He glanced at her as though searching for something, and even her reassuring smile didn't make him stop looking worried. "Looks like you'll be able to take advantage of my services after all, Brigadier," the Doctor added, turning away from Rose.

"I think you'll find the salary is quite adequate," the Brigadier assured him, looking excited up until the Doctor frowned at him.

"Money? My dear chap, I don't want money. I've got no use for the stuff!"

"Then what do you want?" the Brigadier said.

"Well, facilities to repair the TARDIS, laboratory equipment…" His eyes flicked from Rose back to the Brigadier and he wrung his hands nervously. "Help from Rose here."

"She'll have to work for UNIT," the Brigadier said with hopefulness.

Four eyes stared hard at Rose, who blushed and stepped back as far as she could with the Doctor still gripping her hand almost desperately. As much as she didn't want to leave Torchwood, she also didn't want to leave this silly, lonely Doctor all by himself (especially since it was clear he wanted her with him, space-and-timeship or paper bag).

"I'll need to get a new flat…" Rose mumbled aloud.

"Nonsense, you'll stay in the TARDIS!" said the Doctor, eyes wide with delight. "I trust the room you were in earlier will suffice." Besides, she didn't need to know the TARDIS had chosen it for her long before she'd ever agreed to stay.

Sighing, she said, "On one condition. If Torchwood calls me back for missions, I go, regardless of what's happening here."

"That is fine," the Brigadier said happily, clapping his hands. "Welcome to UNIT, Miss Tyler!"

The only reason Rose managed to smile at him was because of the megawatt grin the Doctor sported, looking like his birthday had come early. She was definitely going to miss going to other planets, meeting other aliens, but when the Brigadier stepped out to handle the paperwork and the Doctor scooped her up into a hug and actually _twirled _her, their laughter getting intertwined, she realised that maybe having just one alien around would be good enough.

"Sign here," the Brigadier said, when he returned with the papers. Before the Doctor could put the pen to paper, he exclaimed, "By the way, I've just realised. I don't even know your name."

The Doctor grinned mischievously. "Smith. Doctor John Smith."

When he signed, the Brigadier stepped out again for a brief moment, giving Rose time to turn to him and say, "You're full of it."

"Hm, begging pardon?" he all but hummed, still smiling away like he was Father Christmas.

"That's not your name," Rose said, bumping her hip with his.

His eyes twinkled. "No, it's not."

"Then what is your name, your _real _name?"

Tapping the side of his nose knowingly, the Doctor said, "The only time I could ever tell anyone my birth name would is if I were seconds from death, or…" he flushed, "proposing marriage."

"Ah," Rose mumbled, suddenly finding the hem of her lab coat interesting.

The Brigadier stepped back in, an extra stack of papers in his hands. "It's done. Is that all?"

"My goodness, no," exclaimed the Doctor. "Don't you realise that when I was stranded on this little planet of yours, I had nothing but these clothes that I—" He stopped, looking astonished. "Oh my goodness!"

"What is it, Doctor?" Rose asked.

"Well, I've just realised," he muttered, plucking at the smoking jacket. "I don't even own these. I borrowed them from the hospital!" He suddenly looked contemplative. "And there's that car, too."

"What car?"

"The one I used to drive here." He smiled. "Yes, you know, I took to that car. It had character."

"No, Doctor," said the Brigadier firmly. "That car must be returned to its owner."

"Must it?" whined the Doctor, before scowling. "Yes, yes, I suppose it must. Still, there's no reason why you couldn't find me something similar, is there?"

"Oh, very well," muttered the Brigadier.

"Good." He wagged his eyebrows in Rose's direction. "And you should help me pick it out!"

Rose laughed. "The only time I've ever gone car shopping was when my dad wanted to buy me a Ferrari. What on Earth would I do with a bloody Ferrari?"

The Brigadier smiled. "I must arrange for a full set of papers first."

"Papers," sniffed the Doctor, waving his hand as though it'd bat away the prospect of paperwork.

The sound of Rose's mobile vibrating in her pocket startled them. Rose slipped it out and checked the ID, which showed it was Jack calling, and she was surprised to realise that she had been so wrapped up in her adventure and the Doctor she had completely forgotten about her team. "It's my Lieutenant Commander."

The Doctor swallowed. "What will you tell him?"

Rose paused, before turning to him and grinning, tongue in teeth. "That he's about to get promoted."

* * *

"Lieutenant Commander Jack Harkness," Rose said, smiling proudly at the positively beaming, dressed-to-the-nines Jack standing in front of her. "It is my pleasure to promote you to the rank of Captain."

The Torchwood building erupted into cheers, applause and whistles as Rose pinned on her captain's pip to the sleeve of Jack's blazer. True to his nature, the moment she was done he swept her up into a giant hug and smacked a kiss right on her mouth. The team erupted into laughter alongside the applause, before somebody started music and everybody began chattering over punch.

"It's gonna suck without you, Rosie," Jack said, still beaming at her.

"You'll manage, _Captain _Jack," Rose grinned, tongue in teeth.

"And all of us are wondering who this Doctor guy is," Jack said, bumping his hip against hers and wagging his eyebrows like the Doctor would. "We want to know the dude who managed to seduce Rose away from Torchwood."

Rose snorted. "I hardly think he 'seduced' me."

Jack opened his mouth to reply but stopped himself, spotting something behind her. "Does he look like he's about fifty or sixty, wearing a black jacket and a red lined cape?"

"Er, yeah. How'd you know?"

"He's glaring at me from the doorway," Jack grinned, and Rose turned around to see the Doctor doing exactly that. "Maybe he saw me kiss you," he suggested, winking at her.

Rose rolled her eyes. "S'not like that Jack, I told you."

Giving him another hug, Rose hopped into the crowd towards the angry-looking Doctor. "What's up?"

"Was that your boyfriend?" asked the Doctor coolly, giving the man a look-over with patronising eyes.

"No, that's my former Lieutenant Commander," Rose said. "He's snog-happy. Watch."

They waited all of thirty seconds for Jack to spring a snog on somebody else— he did not disappoint, soon seeking out Ianto and pretty much pinning him to the wall in a kiss that made the what-the-Devil-is-personal-space Doctor blush.

"Well then," blustered the Doctor, and Rose giggled. "What say you about leaving this terribly stuffy place, hm?"

Rose pretended to consider it, tongue poking out at the corner of her mouth. "I say… sounds brilliant," she said, watching him positively beam. "Wanna get chips?"

"Ooh, yes!" he chirped, and upon seizing Rose's hand the two of them hurried out of the building, giggling like teenagers.

* * *

It'd hit her that she and the Doctor would be living together when they had returned from getting chips, and he'd led her into the TARDIS before outwardly remarking, "Oh, I just realised, we didn't pick up any of your clothing articles or anything!"

She flushed brilliantly at the realisation and said quickly, "I'll just… er… get some of my things tomorrow, shall I?"

He frowned at her embarrassment but nodded. "Very well. Good night, Rose."

"Night Doctor."

And with that, she fled to her bedroom. Closing the door behind her quickly, she hid her face in her hands. Her mum was going to have a conniption when she found out her daughter had _moved in_ with an aged-looking alien man who had zero concept of personal space. The ship seemed to hum around her almost amusedly at her thoughts, and Rose lowered her hands from her face, frowning confusedly. What on Earth…?

The dresser, whose drawers were opened, immediately distracted her, bearing stacks of clothing that didn't belong to her. Rose plucked at a shirt and ooh-ed at it— it was lovely. Then her frown returned. If the Doctor himself had had to obtain clothes from the hospital, and had remarked that she didn't have any of her things, then why did she have a dresser full of female clothes that just so happened to be her size?

The hum grew amused again, and this time Rose didn't just stand there like a dolt. Feeling a little worried, she dropped the shirt and headed back into the console room, where the Doctor was staring at some kind of circular pattern on the monitor. He started when she entered, mirroring her frown. "Is anything the matter?"

"Yeah, I have a question," Rose said tentatively, wondering how she was going to ask this without sounding completely bonkers. "Is your ship alive?"

He blinked at her, mouth agape. "How on Earth did you know?"

Rose put her hand on her hip. "I've got a dresser full of clothes my size that don't belong to me. Also, whenever I think something that's apparently funny, the sound of the humming changes. I dunno how to explain it, but it sounds almost like—"

"Like she's laughing," the Doctor finished for her. He took on a gentle smile, eyes softening into something reverent. "Clever Rose Tyler."

Rose blushed at his praise but tried to keep it together. "So, _she _is sentient, then?"

"Yes," he replied, still smiling. "And she's apparently quite taken with you."

"Wha'?"

"I've had, oh, about sixteen people come aboard the TARDIS since I stole— I mean, _acquired _her," he told her, fumbling to cover up his mistake. "Never once has the TARDIS come out to anyone."

"I'm… honoured," Rose said, uncertainly but not untruthfully. At her words, the pitch in the humming changed again to something Rose inexplicably recognised as thanks. "You're welcome." As the Doctor smiled at her like she had just turned into a goddess before his eyes, she added, "Goodnight, Doctor," before heading back into her room.

He watched her go, marvelling at this fantastic creature he'd stumbled upon. The TARDIS hummed in agreement at his thoughts and depicted her sadness at not being able to leave Earth with a few quick images of all sorts of places he could have taken Rose Tyler. The Doctor sobered quickly. Hopefully his exile wouldn't be quite so long as a century. Though it was foolish to hope, he wished it would be over very soon, so that he could take Rose to dozens of places scattered across the universe, and he could watch her light up with delight at all of them.

He didn't know what the sodden hell it was, but there was _something _about her, something that drew him like a moth to a flame— a surprisingly accurate metaphor, since his new body seemed to revel in her human warmth. Humans had always been a smidge warmer than his Gallifreyan physiology, but she positively radiated with heat, even if he was standing a good few metres away from her, and he couldn't help but try and press himself closer. This need for her warmth seemed to be coupled with a craving for contact, whether it was a hip touching hers, or a hand holding another, or even a hug. The Doctor knew that others, usually, would be appalled by his, quote, 'handsy' nature, but Rose didn't seem to mind it, which only stoked his desire to be near and touching her in some way. Perhaps it was the need for comfort after his own people had taken away Jamie and Zoe and banished him… that would certainly explain the desire to be practically moulded to her like a second skin, although it didn't quite elaborate on his revelling in her body heat.

His TARDIS took on an amused stance at his last thought, and he stuck his tongue out at the time rotor. Tomorrow, he decided, he would be up bright and early to make Rose Tyler breakfast (could he still cook? He wasn't sure) as a secret thanks for all of her silent, unknowing comfort, but tonight, he would sleep.

And for the first time ever, he dreamed of her.

* * *

Rose woke with a pleased, sleepy gurgle, burrowing deeper into the warmth of her blankets. The TARDIS hummed at her, and this time she didn't know what it meant and didn't really care, but just so as not to be rude she mumbled, "Morning," to the time ship and heard her humming change pitch again into something akin to delight. Rose sat up in bed, scratching the back of her neck and glancing at the clock. It was nearly ten in the morning. She almost yelped— why didn't the Doctor wake her up? The TARDIS gave another hum, this one soothing, and she obediently relaxed. Sighing, Rose tossed off the duvet and padded into the loo, which she was shocked to discover was not only enormous and the most posh loo she'd ever set foot in, but it also had several make up and beauty products identical to her own.

Raising an eyebrow at them, she addressed the TARDIS. "Not really sure how you knew those things, but thanks."

Another hum, which Rose guessed was the ship's equivalent of 'you're welcome'. Smiling, Rose grabbed a bottle of strawberry shampoo and hopped into the spacious shower. After her shower she applied her make up, dressed and opened her door to greet the Doctor in the console room— except her door didn't lead to the console room anymore. Instead it opened to a long corridor with tons of doors. Rose was itching to find out what lay behind the many doors ('_bigger on the inside' was the understatement of the century,_ thought Rose with excitement) but the TARDIS seemed to nudge her in the direction of the corridor's end, and she obediently headed to the right. The scent of bacon and eggs met her nose and her stomach grumbled in unison, so she opened the door at the end of the corridor.

There was the Doctor, in what looked to be a galley equipped with every cooking utensil known to man (and some not known), dressed in a flowery apron and humming a silly tune as he flipped bacon onto a plate. "Good morning, Rose Tyler!" he all but beamed, setting down his utensil and bouncing over to give her a gigantic hug.

Rose returned the hug by instinct, grinning for some reason when he burrowed his face into her hair, and waited for him to let go. Which he didn't. Laughing a bit, she said, "Er, Doctor?"

"Hm?" he hummed happily, oblivious to the fact that this was turning into something more than a good-morning hug.

"You can let go now."

"Oh, right, yes!" he blustered, unravelling his arms from her and looking like he didn't know what to do with them anymore. Instead, he settled for flushing and pointing at a plate covered in eggs, bacon and toast. "That's, er, yours."

"Ooh, bacon!" she chirped, giving him a chaste kiss on the cheek as thanks and bouncing over to her plate, oblivious to the fact that the Doctor had just turned a brilliant shade of magenta.

He simply stared at the floor for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts, before managing to stammer out, "W-we're due to meet the Brigadier at noon. He's indisposed, at the moment— at a briefing or some dreadfully boring thing like that."

Rose giggled over her toast. "S'only ten in the morning though. What'll we do 'till then?"

He grinned at her, wagging his eyebrows. "I recall somebody telling me they enjoy playing chess…"

* * *

The Brigadier, Rose and the Doctor were all gathered in the UNIT field HQ lounge, the former two nursing cups of tea on the couch while the latter sat sulking in the corner, his cup of tea cold and forgotten.

"What's wrong with him?" the Brigadier asked, noticing the Doctor for the first time.

Rose grinned, tongue in teeth. "Played a game of chess. I won. He didn't like that."

The Brigadier chuckled, ignoring the glare the Doctor shot him from his tantrum corner. "Only you, Miss Tyler, would be able to beat the Doctor at anything." He set down his cup and regarded her. "I'm here to brief you on what exactly it is you're doing. You'll still be majoring primarily in extraterrestrial diplomacy—"

"Only it'll be behind the scenes instead of in the field, yeah?" Rose sighed, and the Brigadier nodded. The Doctor seemed to sink a little in his seat at her melancholy.

"Precisely. You'll still be making the major decisions, of course, and organising routes of trade and information exchange."

"Paperwork," Rose grimaced. "Unless Torchwood calls me," she added, giving him a pointed glance.

"Yes, yes," said the Brigadier, waving a hand as he took a long sip from his cup, draining it. As the Doctor fidgeted in his seat behind them, he seemed to make a decision and tentatively situated himself next to Rose, taking her hand almost like he expected her to yank it back. "It'll perhaps cheer you up to know that I have the full set of papers for you to purchase an automobile," the Brigadier said to the Doctor.

A smile came to his face. "Oh, how positively lovely!" Rose giggled at his enthusiasm as he all but yanked the papers from the Brigadier and scanned them over. "Ooh, I have my own parking space!"

Even the Brigadier laughed at that. "Just sign them."

The Doctor grabbed a pen and scribbled his false name on several of the papers, practically throwing them in the Brigadier's face when he was done and jumping up, dragging Rose with him. "To the car dealer's we go, Rose Tyler!"

They were driven to a car dealer's in downtown Essex by another company car, in which Rose listened to the Doctor chatter excitedly about hoping to find a car that would be like the one he drove from the hospital to UNIT headquarters.

"Let me get this straight," Rose said slowly, "you hid in the shower so the doctors wouldn't find you, stole some bloke's cape and outfit, and then stole his car too?"

"'Stole' is a strong word," he hummed, tapping the side of his nose knowingly. "All of the items were returned to him. Well, except this one," he added, stroking the velvet-lined cape lovingly. "Ah, we're here!"

The Doctor actually held the door open for her when they pulled into the lot, only to have him grab her hand and bounce over excitedly towards an antique-looking old roadster. "Perfect!"

"In what way is that anywhere near perfect?" Rose gaped, taking it in. "It's a hundred years old! And honestly, it's _yellow_!"

"You're yellow," he pointed out, grinning at her bottle-blonde hair.

"Yeah, not _that _yellow," Rose grimaced. "It looks like spilled juice."

Not listening to her, the Doctor placed a hand on his chin, eyeing the car thoughtfully. "It needs a name." He snapped his fingers. "I shall call it Bessie!"

Rose succumbed into a fit of giggles, having to lean on the newly dubbed 'Bessie' to keep from collapsing onto the pavement. "An' you gave it such a hideous name!"

"It is not hideous!" he sniffed, straightening out his smoking jacket. "It is imaginative." The Doctor's beam returned like the flick of a light switch. "It'll be wonderful to have such a contraption to totter around in! Perhaps I'll build one myself! Maybe a sports car. Ooh, or a hovercraft!"

"You gonna call it 'Debbie'?" Rose asked cheekily, tongue in teeth.

He simply chuckled before letting go of her hand to pretty much chase down one of the employees.

* * *

A month working with Rose proved to be the most fun the Doctor had had in his life, which was saying something, considering he was not only centuries old but usually despised being stuck in the same place and time for too long. He did have moments where his legs itched to do what they've been doing since he was Loomed and run, but they weren't frequent, since he was usually having too much fun with Rose to be thinking about it. He was also distracted by the urges to do odd things.

Like shove her up against a wall and snog her whenever she said something clever, for instance, which was practically every second, so he had his work cut out for him.

Since they drove Bessie home together and parked her in his very own space by the bushes, he and Rose had busied themselves with UNIT work — which turned out to be a lot more fun than it had originally sounded — and she had even accompanied him in building a hovercraft, which was halfway to being complete already. He looked forward to lying underneath the half-finished craft, Rose next to him and pressing up against his side as they worked. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate, what with her heat radiating off him like he was taking a walk by the sun, and more often than not he'd burn his fingers.

"Have you written up the terms of the treaty?" Rose was mumbling as she scanned over a set of papers. The laboratory had been upgraded, organised and even renovated so that Rose even had a desk (that he shared, occasionally… often… every day).

"Last night," said the Doctor briskly.

Rose set down the papers and rubbed at her eyes. "Ugh. I despise paperwork."

"Would you like me to get the captain to pick us up some chips?" the Doctor suggested, bouncing up behind her and giving her an unprovoked backwards hug.

As always, she hummed happily at the gesture and leaned back into him, making him shudder with… something. "We can't keep treatin' Munro like he's a delivery boy."

"Well, it's not like he's busy," said the Doctor with a shrug, and Rose laughed as he stepped out. As it turned out, Munro wasn't too happy about his delivery job either, but the extra two quid the Doctor slipped him was what made him go out and pick them up a box of chips. Munching on one with delight, he re-entered the laboratory only to see Rose frowning at a file. "What's the matter?"

"The Brigadier seems to have slipped me your file," Rose said, and he internally froze up. "Reckon he's trying to tell us something?"

"Er, perhaps," the Doctor mumbled, wringing his hands before sitting down on the edge of the desk that wasn't covered in papers. "Well, go on then, open it."

Rose obliged, gasping and beaming at the photograph she encountered inside. "Oh, look at you!" She laughed. "Look at that hat!"

"The hair," he added with a grimace, though finding a little bit of solace in her laughter. "That was what I used to look like before I regenerated."

"Before you what?"

"Regenerated." He hesitated. "It's a… process the Time Lords go through when fatally wounded, sort of like a way of cheating death. We change every cell in our body. Become a relatively new person, with a new face. But we keep all our memories," he added, noting her look of confusion. "It's just tiny aspects of our personality that changes."

"So, like, what were you when you were… Top Hat?" Rose asked, pointing to the file.

The Doctor grimaced. "I was an ignorant buffoon. I'm serious!" he insisted, when Rose raised her eyebrows. "Zoe may even have been smarter than I was. She—" He fell silent, finding Rose's paperweight suddenly very engaging.

Rose's face fell at his downtrodden expression. She remembered his calling her Zoe, back when she'd found him wounded and half-conscious in Oxley Wood. Circling her desk she slid next to him, took his hand and placed her head on his shoulder, literally feeling him relax underneath her. "Who was Zoe?"

"My companion before you," the Doctor blurted out, flushing when he realised he'd verbally acknowledged her role as a companion. "She was _almost _as clever as you," he added, smiling for some reason when she swatted his arm. "And I had another companion, Jamie. He was a Highlander. Always wore a kilt, him."

"What happened to them?" Rose said softly, trailing her thumb over his hand.

"We fixed something that needed to be fixed, and the Time Lords punished us for it," the Doctor said simply, before internally cursing himself over his habit of being vague. It was high time he started being completely truthful with Rose. Well, except for his odd desires to kiss her. That he could keep to himself. "The Time Lords… believe themselves to be the most advanced species in the universe. They look over the events of time, always watching, refusing to interfere. I was never a very good Time Lord, though," he winked, and she hummed and snuggled into him, giving him the courage to continue. "They erased Jamie and Zoe's memories and sent them back to their times, and forced me to regenerate."

The fact that Rose looked affronted and squeezed his hand at the same time made the pain over losing his best friends a hell of a lot easier. It also made his hearts speed up a bit. "They can _do_ that? Isn't that, like, execution or something?"

He cocked his head. "Well, in a way."

Rose snorted. "They sound like an awful bunch of barmy old codgers."

The Doctor laughed, drawing her in closer to him and closing his eyes to revel in her body heat. "They most certainly are!" Smile fading, he stared down at her. "Can I ask something of you?"

"'Course."

"Your position in life and your demeanour don't match," he said, watching her smile sadly.

"Well, seems only fair I should tell you about me," Rose said, sighing. "Right now, I have a rich dad. He founded Torchwood and the Vitex Corporation. I'm literally the heiress to two major companies. Only, that's not always how it was." She took a pause, and looked so far away the Doctor could swear she was all the way on Gallifrey right now. "When I was a baby, my dad was this failing businessman. Then one day he went missing, an' everyone thought he was dead. My mum had to raise me on her own in a council estate, so we were always tight on money, yeah?" He nodded, using his free hand to smooth back her hair. "Then, when I was sixteen, I met a bloke called Jimmy Stone. Called himself a 'musician', he did. Dropped out of school to travel with him, an' spent three years takin' care of him and tryin' to support the both of us, 'till he took off with another blonde and left me in a huge pile of debt."

"Arsehole!" he burst out, fuming, before flushing at his outburst. "I mean, er, continue."

She gave him an amused smile but obliged. "Anyway, my mum an' I were just about to go bankrupt. Then, out of nowhere, my dad shows up on our doorstep!" Rose beamed happily at the memory. "Turns out he'd gotten into a car accident an' hit his head. Total amnesia. Wound up in a hospital in Hounslow, an' ended up living in Cardiff with this bloke who took him in. Eighteen years later, boom— his memories come back an' he hops on the next train to London to reunite with me an' my mum. Even had another kid with her— my brother, Tony. The bloke who took him in ended up co-founding Torchwood with him."

"What a brilliant story!" the Doctor beamed, using this as ample opportunity to sweep her into his lap for a hug. "How positively wonderful!"

Rose laughed at his enthusiasm, hugging his middle. "Yep! So I went back to school, got my A-levels… among other things." She blushed pink. "An' ended up walking up the ranks in Torchwood. Then I left so I could work with a cape-wearing alien," she added, grinning with her tongue poking out at the corner of her mouth.

"Capes are brilliant," he grinned back, before sobering and mustering up the courage to ask the question he'd been dying to ask for the past month. "Do you ever regret leaving Torchwood?"

"Not for a second," she said without a moment's hesitation, looking up at him with earnest.

He swallowed hard, suddenly aware that her face was extremely close; his eyes flickered to her full lips. If he just angled his head and moved forward an inch—

"Right! That's good!" he burst out, turning his head away so she wouldn't see him flush. "Wonderful. Oh, I'd forgotten about the chips!"

Momentarily startled by his retreat, Rose gathered herself together as she too remembered the box of chips sitting on top of the mountain of papers. "Oh yeah, they're probably cold now." She made a face. "Cold chips."

He shrugged, taking a handful and stuffing them into his mouth. "Bottoms up!"

Rose rolled her eyes and was about to tell him off for talking with his mouth full when her mobile started to ring on the side of the desk. Praying to God it wasn't her mother, who had been harping to know exactly why she'd left a high-paying, high-ranking job to work for UNIT, Rose flicked it open and mumbled, "'Lo?"

"HI ROSIE!" Jack screeched in her ear, making her jump and drop the phone onto her lap.

"Er, hello Jack," Rose said, grinning when she brought the phone back to her ear. "What's with the shouting?"

"We need you here at Torchwood," said Jack in a singsong voice. "Remember that Krellat treaty you wrote up last year that made Ianto practically worship you?"

She heard Ianto's embarrassed noise of protest in the background and flushed. "Yeah."

"Well there was an incident on one of the diplomatic bases; _apparently _a group of Krellat misfits stole some of our more advanced equipment." Had he been in the room with her, she was positive he would have been winking. "The government's pissed that we supposedly 'accused' them and they've called a meeting in neutral space. And you _are _pretty much exalted with the Krellat government. They don't like me 'cause I chatted up the old senator and made him give up his position to become a stripper on Zaal."

"'Course I'll do it, stupid," Rose grinned, laughing. With a sideways glance at the Doctor, who'd by now already polished off half the box of chips, she added, "If the Doctor can come too."

"The guy who thinks he's a superhero?" Jack asked. "All right, but if he starts leaping tall buildings in a single bound…"

Imagining the Doctor bounding over a skyscraper with his cape flying behind him, all the while wagging his eyebrows, made her collapse into such a fit of giggles that Jack ended up joining her and even the Doctor grinned uncertainly at her. "Bye Jack."

Hanging up and wiping her eyes, she turned to the Doctor and shot him another tongue-in-teeth grin. "Want to come see me in action?"

* * *

He was in the Torchwood office, wringing his hands and trying not to look too nervous. Perhaps he was just being paranoid (at least, that's what the TARDIS kept telling him) but the Doctor was worried that Rose being back in her old environment would make her change her mind about staying at UNIT with him. He certainly did see the appeal— Tosh and Gwen were utter dears and Ianto was kind enough to make him an absolutely smashing cup of tea, although he all but ignored Owen when the arse made a crack about his cape. The snog-happy Jack had flaunted off to brief Rose on the mission nearly an hour ago, and even Ianto's fantastic Orange Pekoe brew wasn't enough to calm his nerves.

Especially when Rose hopped out through the door, dressed in a black and grey uniform that was so tight on her it should be illegal, and was on sixteen planets that came to mind. A long-sleeved, unbelievably tight, V-neck jumper that accentuated her breasts — not that he was looking — a pair of shiny black leggings that moulded around her legs and her bottom — again, not that he was looking — a loose hanging belt with several holsters holding multiple weapons and a pair of combat boots that strapped around her calves.

"Pick your jaw up, mate," Gwen whispered to him, and he hastily closed his mouth and flushed red.

"Sorry it took so long, Jack just _had_ to toss in innuendos between every sentence," Rose said, shooting the equally dressed-up Jack a glare. "The ship's already in orbit, so we're gonna use the short-range transmat. Messes up your head a bit, but it wears off after a minute. Are you okay?" she added, giving the blushing Doctor an odd look.

"Fine," he squeaked out, trying to look anywhere but her chest.

"You'll be going _only_ as a UNIT consultant, 'kay Batman?" Owen snipped, before crying out in pain when Rose accidentally on purpose moved the door so he'd hit his knee on it.

"And _you _won't be goin' at all, so you won't have to worry about it, Robin," Rose retorted, and even the Doctor had to hide a snort. "All right, tell Adeola we're ready to go."

The Doctor instinctively took her hand and shifted closer to her warmth as Jack pressed a button on the back of his earpiece and grinned, "Hey beautiful, we're ready."

A flash of white suddenly surrounded them, and the Doctor found himself on board an advanced-looking silver ship. Rose suddenly sagged against him, and he ignored the two other people that fell to the ground and turned to her. "Are you all right, my dear?"

"Will be in a mo', ta," Rose mumbled, turning properly towards him and slipping her hands onto his shoulders to lean on him.

He swallowed and left his hands hovering over her waist in case she fell and he had to catch her, lowering his head and unconsciously brushing his nose over her hair. Jack and Gwen's paired groans from below them made him snap his head up just in time as Rose pulled herself together and the others hoisted themselves up off the floor.

"Sometimes I hate that goddamn thing," Jack grunted. "How come it didn't affect you?"

"Superior Time Lord biology," he said primly, and Rose smirked at him before reclaiming his hand and leading him down a narrow grey corridor.

They entered a large brightly lit room, with three aliens standing in a triangular form at the back of it. They were dressed primly in silver lined uniforms embedded with flashing technology, their skin was a golden brown and their eyebrows were all permanently arched downward, making them appear angry even though they looked quite calm. Another alien, a different one, with green-tinged skin and no nose, eyes or hair, was standing in the corner as though trying to blend in with the furniture, dressed in a plain brown garb like peasant's clothing.

The Doctor frowned, leaned in and whispered, "Who is that in the corner?"

Rose grimaced. "That's a Vinn. The Krellat have enslaved them 'cos they're blind and less evolved."

The Doctor frowned at that, already starting to hate the Krellat even before the front most one opened his mouth and said, in a voice that sounded like several voices overlapping one another, "Ambassador Rose Marion Tyler, who is the extra man? He was not invited."

"This is the Doctor, a consulting officer on this mission," Rose said, her voice taking on a firm commanding tone that made him use all his self control not to gawk at. "And, last time I checked, this meeting was about the incident at Diplomatic Base Sigma, not about invitations."

The Krellat's already arched eyebrows deepened and his lip curled over bronze teeth. "Indeed, the false accusations of theft."

"I'd hardly call them false, Ambassador Imk," Rose said coolly. "We have video evidence of seven Krellat men stealing five Vortex Manipulators and a dimension cannon from the base."

Ambassador Imk snorted. "As though any self-respecting Krellat would steal measly bric-a-brac from such a technologically deficient race."

The Doctor had half a mind to stomp up and yell at him for talking to Rose like that, but Rose simply smirked. "Right, except the Shadow Proclamation already has the evidence. Turns out they recognised one of those men… isn't that correct, Senator Malem?"

Rose turned narrowed eyes on the Krellat to the right, who growled at her. Imk actually stomped his foot. "You _dare _accuse a government official of theft?!"

"Any and all attempts to steal time-and-dimension travel technology is a violation of the treaty and could be interpreted as an act of war," Rose snapped, head held high and shoulders squared.

The Doctor gaped at her and even Jack looked like he was swooning. She was unbelievably confident, clever and headstrong, and so impressive. And that's when he realised he was in love with her.

"False accusations without supportive evidence are as well!" thundered Imk.

"Haven't you been listening, Ambassador? We have the evidence, and so does the Shadow Proclamation. And you're giving me a hell of a reason to bring them in right now."

"Ambassador, Senator, perhaps we ought to meet with the Shadow Proclamation and review their findings," suggested the third Krellat on the far left.

"They have no findings," said Imk stubbornly.

"Worried the government's gonna find out about your conspiracy?" Rose said, hand on her hip and eyebrows raised.

The third Krellat frowned. "Conspiracy?"

"To void the treaty and simultaneously obtain the ability to travel in time and across dimensions." She nodded at the other two. "Go on then, tell him. I'm sure your homeworld would love to hear about it."

Two of them suddenly squared off in a stance that suggested they were about to sprint towards her and attack, both of their eyes suddenly glowing red like burning rubies, the third and nameless Krellat suddenly looking shocked. With hasty motions, the Doctor shoved Rose behind Jack and out of harm's reach, and then with a practised motion flung an angry Krellat each over his shoulder. As they both smacked their heads against the floor and lay motionless, he suddenly became aware that Rose was staring at him like he'd just grown a second head.

"What the hell was _that_?" she gaped, glancing between him and the unconscious government officials.

"Er, Venusian Aikido," he muttered, looking at his shoes and wondering if he'd just bollocks-ed everything up.

Thankfully, she grinned with amazement. "There are karate schools on Venus?"

He beamed at her before the only conscious Krellat in the room cleared his throat, stealing her attention. "Ambassador Rose Marion Tyler, I do hope you will not hold this against the Krellat government. I assure you, we had no idea of Malem and Imk's plans."

For the first time since she'd arrived on the ship, Rose granted a genuine smile. "Don't worry, we've been on to their plan for a while now, Ressek."

The one called Ressek relaxed a bit. "The treaty?"

"Still strong, hopefully," Rose said. "You can take these two into custody, explain to your government why we 'accused' them. Had to get those two out into the open somehow."

Ressek smiled, bronze teeth shining. "Come, Worker," he said abruptly to the green Vinn in the corner, and he hastened to comply. The two vanished in a stream of blue, along with the other two unconscious Krellat.

"Goodbye to you too," said the Doctor indignantly.

Rose giggled. "They don't believe in goodbyes. Or hellos, for that matter."

He made a face— how dreadfully rude. Then he hesitated, before sweeping her up into a hug, momentarily forgetting that Jack and Gwen were watching. "You were absolutely amazing."

Her already overwhelming heat flamed at his words, and he knew she was blushing into his jacket. "Thank you. So were you, you know," she added, looking up at him and beaming.

Her cheeks were rosy and her warm brown eyes were twinkling. He wanted badly to sweep down and kiss her, but instead he simply let go of her and smiled a bit grimly. "Thank you."

He was in immense trouble.

* * *

Rose had stayed late in the afternoon in her old Torchwood office to tie up loose ends with the Krellat government, but the Doctor had positively fled back to UNIT without her. She wasn't sure if it was because of his mysterious retreat on the spaceship or because he was still scared that she would decide to stay at Torchwood and leave him behind, but either way she was worried. If it was the former, she had no idea what had prompted his sudden drawback and whether or not it was her fault; if it was the latter, she wanted to run down to UNIT field headquarters and assure him she wasn't going anywhere.

Sighing, Rose tossed down her papers, said goodbye to her old team and had a company car drive her back down to UNIT. She found him staring hard at a chessboard, the pieces set up so that it was halfway through the game. "Hello. What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out how you beat me," he muttered, flicking a black knight forward two squares.

Rose grinned amusement before realising something. "You actually remember all the moves we did in it?"

"I remember everything," he shrugged.

Chuckling, she bounced around the table to where he was sitting and leaned down close as if telling a secret. "I used the Bad Wolf Middlegame Exchange. S'a move developed by the highly intelligent Verdana monks, an' there are only seven conceived counter moves that could possibly beat it."

His sombre expression was replaced by a proud smile. "You cheeky, brilliant woman."

She shrugged, tongue in teeth. "Wanted to see if you'd catch it."

He grinned, before sobering quickly and staring at the board. "That's one of the things I adore about you."

She blushed pink and ducked her head. "Wha'?"

"Your brilliance," he said bluntly, keeping his eyes locked on his rook. "Time Lords are known across the universe to have the most advanced of minds, and yet here you are, using your cleverness and imagination to beat me." The eyes he turned on her were ones filled with terror, making worry flood her insides. "I'm scared you'll leave me."

Rose's mouth made a silent 'oh' motion and she dropped to her knees so she could hug him. He clutched at her tightly as though expecting her to fade away if he let go. "Doctor, 'm never leaving."

"You will," he mumbled into her hair. "My exile could be several hundreds years, and by then you'll be gone."

This was probably true, and it panged Rose to even think about it. "I'll stay as long as I can, I promise."

"Forever?" he said, foolishly pretending this was possible.

"Forever," she agreed just as unwisely.

He seemed to relax at that at first, but then suddenly he pulled away a few inches so that their faces were extremely close together. Looking a bit alarmed, he said, "Rose, I'm warning you now that it's possible I'm about to do something very stupid."

Letting one hand travel to the back of her head, he suddenly swooped down and quickly caught her lower lip between his, ever so gently as though expecting her to push him off and bolt in the other direction. She let herself be stunned for the briefest of moments before weaving her arms around his neck and tilting her head for a better angle. At once his entire demeanour changed— the moment she became completely compliant, he became aggressive and desperate. With the swift movements only a Time Lord could master, he pulled her up so she was standing, stood as well, then hoisted her up be her arse and pushed her onto the chess table, pieces clattering to the floor like a hailstorm. He plunged his fingers into her hair, slanting his mouth against hers with a hungry pant that sent a jolt downward for both of them, and Rose retaliated by slipping her tongue between his lips and sliding it over his. The Doctor actually groaned at that, shoving a knee between her legs and forcing them open.

"Miss Tyler, your—" said the Brigadier's voice from the doorway, before it stopped abruptly.

They both pulled away with echoing gasps, heads snapping towards the astonished Brigadier standing still as a statue in the doorway. Behind him were two equally stunned people— one balding ginger man and one furious looking blonde woman. With an angry, high-pitched shout, the latter stormed over to the Doctor and slapped him across the face, shrieking, "_You creepy old man_!"

"_Mum_!" Rose shouted, jumping down off the chess table and stepping protectively in front of the stunned Doctor, so the woman like a rampaging elephant couldn't have another go at him.

"Dear Rassilon, Theta, a _human_?" gawked a disgusted, baritone voice from behind them.

The group turned around in the other direction to see three haughty-looking men dressed in red robes edged with gold, the front most grimacing at the Doctor as though he'd just turned into a slug.

The Doctor glared at him, hugging Rose to him protectively as she whispered, "Doctor, who is that?"

"That, Rose, is my brother."

**A/N: Another cliffhanger :3 Sorry, I'm evil.**** Only one more chapter to go until Zugzwang is completed! This chapter's chess move was imaginary, but the next chapter's chess move isn't. Thank yous go out to natural-blues (you are just a DARLING), bananas-are-good-9, wishbones, Elsie and DeepBlue-sama :) © Robert Holmes and the BBC for the little snippets of dialogue from Spearhead from Space at the beginning. Hope you liked, please review!  
**


	3. Reti Manoeuvre

**Pre-chapter A/N: The chess term 'Zugzwang' is a moment in the game when the player realises he/she will inevitably be checkmated, and must decide whether or not to forfeit or play to the end. **

**Beta: **My friend** Alias **who felt left out when Lucien beta-d the last chapter and wanted in on the action XD

* * *

Chapter Three

Reti Manoeuvre

"Your brother?" Rose echoed, the shock of both seeing a Time Lord in person, and that Time Lord being a sibling of the man she'd just snogged against a chess table, making her momentarily forget that her parents and the Brigadier were watching.

"Irving Braxiatel," the Doctor nodded. The Doctor's brother scowled at him, clearly unhappy about being spoken of in the third person whilst present, but the Doctor merely emulated his glare and said, "What do you want, Brax?"

"To know why the sodden hell you're having _relations _with… _that_," Brax spat, glaring daggers at her.

Rose could see Jackie was about to explode at Brax, but since he didn't seem like the kind of person to be messed with, Rose hurriedly mouthed 'no' behind the Doctor's back and shook her head vigorously. Jackie pursed her lips but obediently stayed silent, giving the Doctor the opportunity to snap, "I love her."

Jackie, Pete and the Brigadier all gaped at each other like gossiping women and Rose's heart soared. To try and hide her smile she hugged the Doctor tighter, half burying her face in his jacket.

Brax, for the most part, looked horrified. "I always knew you to frolic around with humans, but Rassilon, Theta, _love_?"

"What do you want, Brax?" the Doctor repeated loudly, ignoring Rose's questioning look when Brax called him 'Theta'.

"The High Council has been observing you for the past month to make sure you didn't cause any more trouble," Brax sniffed, and even though his words were directed at the Doctor his patronising stare stayed on Rose. "Well, at least they would have been, had the Lord President not been interested in that pathetic little human over there."

"What are you talking about? What does Erix want with Rose?"

The Doctor's grip on her tightened so possessively even Brax noticed it; with a clearly displeased look on his narrow face, Brax said, "'Rose' has been distributing some odd characteristics for a human. Subliminally advanced intelligence and strategic prowess that a _lesser species _oughtn't have in the first place."

"You believe her to be an anomaly?" said the Doctor curiously.

Brax grimaced, barely inclining his head in unison. "The Lord President wants us to scan her for anything out of the ordinary. Not that we'll find anything," Brax felt the need to add, looking down his nose on her.

Rose wanted very much to show him just what this 'lesser species' could do, but instead she bit her tongue and obligingly let go of the Doctor so that the two other Time Lords could step forward and scan her with something resembling a whirring metallic rod. After a minute of uneventful scanning, the right Time Lord stood up and said to Brax, "She's normal."

Brax smirked with superiority. "Just as I thought. Nothing but a mangy little wolf." This time it was Pete who opened his mouth to shout and Jackie who shushed him. The Doctor snatched back Rose's hand, glaring at Brax, who added, "We'll be taking these… _findings… _back to the Lord President." With a smirk, he added, "Enjoy your exile."

In a beam of gold light, the three Time Lords disappeared, leaving Jackie to finally do what she'd been itching to do since she'd arrived and explode. With yet another slap for the Doctor that had even Pete flinching, she shouted, "_Who the sodden hell d'you think you are?_"

"Er, Madame, I think—" started the Brigadier.

Jackie's fury was immediately turned onto him, and he recoiled. "Don't you 'Madame' me, Mister! Is this what you lot let happen over here at UNIT? Let old men put their hands on my daughter an' then have their sodden brothers come in an' insult her?"

"Mum, he's not—" Rose started to fume.

"— said this was a _behind-the-scenes _establishment, you did, never said anything about ruddy aliens appearin' in the room to bad mouth Rose an' feel her up—" Jackie's rage was directed at the Brigadier now.

"_Mum, _listen—"

"— bunch o' barmy people, that's what you are, I mean why the sodden hell do you have a police box in the corner over there? For decoration?"

"_Mum, that's enough_!" Rose shouted, delving into the righteous fury ironically inherited by the person exhibiting the same traits.

Jackie opened and closed her mouth a few times, looking like a blonde-haired, pink-jumpsuited fish. Then, drawing herself up and glaring at the Doctor, she said loudly, "Don't think you're welcome in my house, mate!" before seizing Pete's hand and stomping out the doors.

Rose blinked after her, wondering how she'd gone from snogging the Doctor to being insulted by his brother to having a shouting match with her mother in less than ten minutes. Then she remembered the two colossal slaps her mum had bestowed upon her new alien lover, and she hurriedly turned to the Doctor and brought a warm hand to his slightly red cheek. "Are you all right?"

He seemed slightly dazed. "Thousands of years in time and space and I've never once been slapped by someone's mother."

Everything that had just transpired flew out the airlock at his comment. "'Thousand of years'?"

"Well," said the Brigadier loudly, clapping his hands and looking immensely uncomfortable when Rose and the Doctor's attentions turned to him (after they remembered he was in the room). "I'll just… er… papers to take care of and—"

Not even finishing his sentence, the Brigadier frog-marched out of there, face flaming red. Rose blinked after him, before asking, "What just happened?"

"You mean with the Brigadier, or my brother appearing, or your mother attacking me like a rampaging rhino?" the Doctor replied lightly, cowering a little under Rose's sharp look at the latter comment.

"All of it," she said. "One, you didn't tell me you had a brother. Two, he's an arse. Three, he called you 'Theta'."

"Did he?" said the Doctor airily.

Rose scowled at him, retaliating by letting go of his hand and trying to ignore the jolt of adoration when he looked devastated at the loss. "Spit it out, Doctor."

Sticking out his lower lip in a pout and staring longingly at her hand, the Doctor admitted, "My nickname from when I was a student at the Academy on Gallifrey. Theta Sigma."

"Theta Sigma," Rose repeated, missing the involuntary shudder that went through the Doctor as his old nickname fell from her lips.

"Yes," he blustered, trying to shove aside his reaction. "And I hold no responsibility over Brax's arse… ness," he added uncertainly, before seizing back her hand and looking at her with puppy eyes as though pleading with her not to let go again.

She sighed and obliged, drifting forward so she was pressed into his chest. He made a content sound in the back of his throat, willing to let go of her hand only now that he could weave his arms around her and pull her and her warmth closer. "Sorry about Mum," Rose mumbled.

"I can assure you, Rose, that I'm not quite so fragile as I appear," he said endearingly.

Rose laughed. "Yeah, I know. Saw the way you flipped those Krellat over your shoulder, remember?" He tried not to preen too much, and failed. "Anyway, she'll cool off in a couple of days, an' then I can introduce you _properly_, yeah?"

As much as the Doctor never wanted to see Jackie Tyler and her Infamous Slap of Doom again, it would probably be an occupational hazard were he to commit himself to Rose Tyler. And that was worth more than anything. "Very well."

"Doctor?"

"Yes, love?"

She smiled into his jacket at the endearment that fitted so perfectly with her next words. "I love you too."

Rose actually felt him shiver with delight, as though this were a corny romance novel instead of real life. He pulled back a little so he could swoop down and kiss her again, crushing his lips to hers like she was oxygen and he was suffocating, and this time there were no meddling Brigadiers to interrupt them, not even when he picked her up and carried her into the TARDIS.

* * *

Things only went downhill from then.

The first thing wrong that Rose noticed was the funny looks Munro kept giving her. He now refused to do them any favours, which Rose thought in the beginning was just him putting his foot down (the Doctor did sort of take him for granted), but she soon grew suspicious that that had nothing to do with it. The second was that the workload decreased rapidly, as though nobody trusted them to do anything, confirming with a sinking feeling in her stomach that people were boycotting them because they were together. It also didn't help that her mother refused to ring her or answer her calls, and the only call Pete managed to sneak his daughter was cut off sharply by Jackie on the other end.

The next time she was summoned to Torchwood, Rose looked forward to it— perhaps having a new atmosphere away from the patronising stares at UNIT would cheer her up. She knew the moment she stepped into the building that she was horribly wrong. Tosh, Gwen and Ianto avoided eye contact with her, and Owen made loud remarks about tentacles and Rose 'shacking up with an old alien'. Things she asked for didn't get done, and everybody at Torchwood either snubbed her or gossiped obviously behind their hands when Rose passed them by. The Doctor didn't seem to mind at first, apparently more than content with the company of herself and his TARDIS, but Rose had always been a sociable creature, and when she started to suffer from it, so did he.

The only people who didn't seem to give a rat's arse about Rose and the Doctor being together were Jack — who had basically slept with anyone and anything that had looked in his direction — and the Brigadier, who still couldn't quite seem to grasp that the Doctor could love at all. As a matter of fact, the only reason Rose and the Doctor were still receiving assignments from both Torchwood and UNIT was because of those two. The Brigadier, no matter how confused he was about this newest development, pushed as many assignments in her direction as he could, apparently just glad she was working for UNIT at all. Jack made daily calls to try and cheer her up, being the sweetheart that he was, and congratulated her on 'boffing a telepath', as he put it.

Despite the disapproval of everybody around them, the Doctor and Rose's relationship continued and strengthened. The Doctor took to forsaking his room for hers, snuggling up with her and all but plastering himself to her back. She wasn't sure whether or not he was comforting her or himself, or perhaps both of them, but either way she loved it. Some nights, when they both pretended to be asleep, Rose could practically hear the gears in his brain whirring and feel the guilt flooding out of him— it was clear that he blamed himself.

After a month of this behaviour, Rose woke up alone for the first time since they'd kissed. Her bed felt cold without him there. Rubbing grit out of her eyes, she felt a flood of worry and turned to the ceiling to address the TARDIS. "Is he all right, girl?"

The TARDIS hummed forlornly at her, confirming her suspicion. Rose hoisted herself out of bed, straightening out her yanked-up vest top and padding into the console room. He wasn't there, but the door was open to the laboratory, and the moment she stepped through it she spotted him lying on his back underneath the propped-up, nearly completed hovercraft with what he called a 'sonic screwdriver' in his hand. It was clear to her that he barely had any idea what he was doing, since he kept poking dazedly at the wrong wires and had burned his fingers twice since Rose had arrived.

Biting her lip, Rose wriggled herself underneath the hovercraft directly next to him. He gave no indication that he'd even noticed she was there, not even when she took his free hand, snuggled up to his side and pressed her lips to his neck. "What's the matter, Doctor?"

"Nothing," he muttered, before sighing and adding, "Everything."

"What?"

"You're living it," he said, giving her a look.

Rose echoed his sigh. "This'll all be over soon."

"It's been a little over a month," the Doctor scowled. "If those stupid apes were going to wake up and realise they're acting like arseholes, they would have done it by now."

"Well, if they don't, then they're not really worth having around, now are they?" Rose pointed out, giving his hand a squeeze.

He stared at her for a few prolonged seconds, before smiling and snuggling into her. "You're far too wise for your age, Rose Tyler."

"I'd hardly call that wisdom," Rose snorted, but smiled back all the same.

"Let's go get chips," he said abruptly, wiggling out from underneath the hovercraft caterpillar-fashion and pulling her out with him.

"For breakfast?" she laughed.

"Precisely," he said with delight, before pulling her up and kissing her deeply. When he pulled away, he added, "And we'll take Bessie."

She dissolved into giggles and allowed him to pull her excitedly towards the hideous yellow roadster they'd both grown to love. When they arrived at the chippy and walked in holding hands, they ignored the odd looks from the occasional passers-by, ordered a box of chips and took it to the park so they could eat and lay down on the grass. The Doctor had Rose laughing until her stomach hurt when he stubbornly continued to try and toss chips into the air and catch them in his mouth, ending several times in the chips either landing in his hair or hitting him in the eye— eventually he looked like he'd put his face in a barrel of salt and Rose had to tell him to stop. She was just starting to feel like her old self again and was leaning in to kiss her Doctor again when she heard a snide comment behind them. "Nice going, gramps."

The Doctor actually paled, and Rose turned to see two teenagers, the male smirking at them and the female looking revolted. Grabbing the Doctor's face, Rose pulled him forward and snogged him soundly in front of them, ignoring his initial shocked gasp and the disgusted sound from the girl. Rose pulled away and glared wolfishly at the two of them, and they stalked off with appalled looks on their faces. Before anything else could happen, Rose turned to the Doctor and said sharply, "Don't even think about it."

"Er, think about what?" he blinked, looking a bit dazed from his thorough snog.

"You're gonna think about what that stupid kid said, and then you're gonna start sayin' things like 'he's right' or something," Rose said. "Don't even think about it."

"He _is _sort of right, though, Rose," the Doctor mumbled, cowering underneath her glare. "Although he doesn't know that I'm more than just a few decades your senior."

"I don't care," she said firmly. "I love you."

"Even though all of your friends and family have abandoned you because of me?" he whispered, and Rose nearly blanched when she saw his eyes glistening.

Heart aching for her poor Doctor, Rose took his hand and hugged it to herself. "No matter what." He smiled a bit sadly, cupping her face with a cool hand and trailing a thumb over the apple of her cheek. She sighed and snuggled herself into his touch for comfort. "Y'know what this feels like sometimes?"

"What, love?"

"Zugzwang."

The Doctor frowned at that. "This is not a chess game."

"Feels like it sometimes." Rose snuggled her head into the crook of his neck. "Like, s'you an' me against the world. We made the first move, and the world responded by tryin' to pummel us."

He opened his mouth to argue but then closed it, realising she was sort of right. Then, because it was his turn to offer consolation, he said, "We're not out yet, love. We can still win. This isn't a zugzwang."

Rose smiled and hummed. "Good. An' even if we do get checkmated, at least we're together."

He all but beamed at her. "Precisely."

* * *

Jack stopped calling for three days after that. He wouldn't answer his mobile, no matter how many times Rose tried to ring him, and the only answers Rose got about his whereabouts from the still stuck-up Torchwood were that he was 'indisposed' at the moment. By the third day Rose was worried— she knew perfectly well Jack hadn't just changed his mind about his opinion over her relationship with the Doctor. Something had happened that Torchwood wasn't telling her about.

Her suspicions were confirmed when, on the fourth day, she got a phone call from Torchwood. The Doctor was in the kitchen, humming 'Hold Me Tight' by the Beatles, of all things, as he made her breakfast, and Rose was situated at the kitchen table poring over their newest assignment. Then her mobile started ringing in her pocket, and Rose nearly hit the ceiling, hoping to high hell that it was Jack.

"Rose?" It wasn't Jack's voice, but Tosh's.

"Tosh?" Rose all but gawked, and the Doctor glared daggers at the phone as if Tosh could see him.

"Listen, Rose… I'm really sorry about the past month and all, but we need your help here," Tosh said hurriedly, and Rose tried not to scoff bitterly. Some apology that was.

"What's the matter, Tosh?"

"Jack's gone missing."

The fact that Rose had gone completely silent, even forsaking breathing, made the Doctor set down his spatula and glance at her worriedly. She was blanched of colour and looking more like a statue or a ghost than a human being. "What?"

"Jack and the others went to one of the outer military bases about four days ago," said Tosh, sounding near tears. "We lost communications with them, and everybody else we send to investigate end up the same way."

"We'll be there in a half hour, Tosh." Without waiting for Tosh's reply, Rose hung up on her and turned her terrified eyes on her equally worried Doctor. "We need to go to Torchwood. Now."

"What's the matter?" said the Doctor, untying his apron and leaving behind the eggs and bacon for the TARDIS to clean up.

"Jack and the others have gone missing," Rose said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the kitchen. "We need to find them."

"We will," he assured her, patting the hand that was currently dragging him into the laboratory. "We'll take Bessie."

She cracked a strained smile at that, and nodded. As they drove hurriedly through traffic in the ancient yellow car, Rose fidgeted in her seat and tried not to hyperventilate. She tried to reassure herself that, when she had worked for Torchwood, she and her team had gotten stranded without communiqué several times… although none of those times were longer than two days. So, with the force of a rabid wolf, Rose Tyler stormed into the Torchwood building rebelliously clasping hands with the Doctor, pushing through the people who still had the gall to giving them repulsed looks even in this crisis. Tosh was at her desk, which was covered in soaked tissues, and her nose and eyes were red.

"Brief me. Now," Rose ordered, her old position as Captain shining through like a beacon.

"W-we lost communications with the team working over at the base," Tosh began with a stammer. "We sent Jack and the others over to investigate, but the only information they could send us was that the base was completely deserted. Then the line got cut. We sent other teams over, but the same thing happened."

"And now you want to send Rose and I?" said the Doctor, looking down his nose on her. "Trying to get rid of us?"

Tosh blanched and Rose looked at him sharply. "Doctor, don't be silly."

"Rose?" said Jackie's voice from behind them, sounding unusually tiny.

Rose whirled around, gaping at the mother that had been ignoring her for the past month and a half. "_Mum_? What are you doing here?"

The Doctor half hid behind Rose as Jackie took a step forward, looking ashamed. "I called Tosh. She said she'd called you, an' that you'd be here." Lower lip trembling, Jackie added, "I shouldn't've acted like I did about you an' him. 'M so sorry, Rosie."

Rose put her hand on her hip. "S'not me you ought to apologise to, it's the Doctor."

"Why?" Jackie asked, one hundred per cent serious.

"You slapped him twice!"

"Oh yeah," said Jackie, looking sheepish. Turning her eyes on the Doctor, she said patronisingly, "You really love my Rose, then?"

"More than anything," he said without hesitation.

Rose blushed and bit back a smile. His answer apparently quelled Jackie, because she smiled too and said, "You'd better treat her right, else I'll give you more than just a slap, y'hear that Mister?"

"Er, yes Madame," said the Doctor awkwardly, and Rose giggled and took his hand.

"Hate to interrupt, but the others…?" Tosh said a bit urgently, and Rose nodded.

The Doctor waited outside as she put on her old uniform again (neither of them would have had any qualms about his being there whilst she dressed, except Jackie Tyler was still in the room and would probably throw a fit if they tried it). When Rose emerged, and the Doctor spent a full minute trying not to look bothered at how _goddamn tight her suit was, by Rassilon, _Tosh handed Rose an earpiece. "We're not going to keep the communications line open, just in case something really is up there and detects it. So only contact me if you find them, or if you need an emergency transmat."

She transmatted them in a flash of gold light. Prepared this time, the Doctor hurried forward and caught the disoriented Rose, this time extremely glad that he was allowed to hold her as close as he wanted. Rose straightened up once she felt better and took a look around, and he emulated her. The room was greyish and barren, looking very much like a military base in the Doctor's opinion. There were discarded weapons thrown haphazardly on the ground and there seemed to be blast marks on the walls, and the whole place had an empty kind of ambient hum.

"Military base Bad Wolf 1," Rose murmured, sweeping her eyes over the scene. "Nearly thirty Torchwood agents and six hundred alien soldiers, and they're all gone."

"Do forgive me for interrupting, love, but did you just say 'Bad Wolf'?" the Doctor asked.

Rose turned to him. "Er, yeah. What's the matter?"

"Ever since I met you, Rose Tyler, that phrase has been cropping up everywhere I look," said the Doctor darkly, eyes glazing over. "The exhibit at Madame Tussauds, the Torchwood protocol thing—"

"The chess move," Rose gaped, realising he was correct.

The Doctor nodded. "And now a military base. It's almost as if it's a warning."

"I'd say it was warning us for this," Rose muttered. "Come on, let's find Jack and the others."

She started down the corridor, moving so stealthily that she barely made a sound in the vacant silence, and the Doctor felt like a blundering elephant in comparison to her. He jumped violently when she gasped aloud, hurrying over towards an unconscious mass lying at the end of the long corridor. "That's Jennings!"

"Who?" asked the Doctor.

"One of Torchwood's backup field agents," Rose murmured, pressing two fingers onto Jennings' neck. "She's dead." Rose gave her a quick examination. "But there don't seem to be any wounds."

"Look, Rose, there's another," said the Doctor urgently as he spotted another body, this time a man's, in the room adjacent. "And another. And…"

The Doctor trailed off, and he and Rose gaped in horror at the mountain of bodies slumped across the room, all of whom Rose recognised. These were all the extra men and women Torchwood had sent in search of Jack, and all of them had been mysteriously murdered— thankfully, none of them were Jack or his team. Rose hurriedly looked through them all, searching for wounds and finding none.

"What the hell could have killed all these people without leaving even a scratch?" Rose wondered.

"Perhaps it's an airborne toxin," the Doctor said, before sticking his tongue out for a full minute. When he pulled it back in and smacked it, he added, "Nope."

Giving him a funny look, Rose said, "Maybe they were poisoned, but not in gaseous form."

"But they all look like they were in the middle of fighting something when they were killed," the Doctor pointed out, before frowning. "I do know of some weapons that can kill humans without leaving any evidence behind. I just hope it's not the Da—"

"EXTERMINATE!"

"ROSE, GET DOWN!" screeched the Doctor, pinning her to the floor just as a red beam of light shot through the air. It missed her by inches, instead hitting the wall and leaving the same kind of mark they'd seen in the corridor. Seizing her hand, the Doctor shouted, "RUN!" and hauled her of the room, running blindly through the corridor and ducking through various rooms and halls.

They finally stopped after running for a good five minutes when he tugged her into a supply closet and shut the door behind them, plunging them into semi-darkness. Rose panted, "Doctor… what the hell was that?"

"A Dalek, Rose," he whispered, and Rose's blood froze at his frightened tone. The Doctor was never truly scared, by anything, and yet here he was, trembling and holding her close. "It was a Dalek."

"What's a Dalek?" she asked, running her hands up and down his back in an effort to console him.

"It almost killed you," he moaned, now sounding close to tears. "My Rose."

"Shh, Doctor, 'm all right," she soothed.

"You have to go back," the Doctor demanded, voice hard but still shaky. "You have to go back to Torchwood, where it's safe. You—"

"Doctor, 'm not goin' back," Rose said firmly, pulling back and grabbing his face between her hands. "Tell me what a Dalek is."

He responded with equal firmness, snatching her hands and squeezing them tightly. "It's the most dangerous creature in the universe, Rose. We've been fighting them for centuries since they were created, but we have not yet been able to get rid of them." He practically pinned her to the wall, eyes drilling into hers. "They haven't any emotions, Rose, except anger, and they kill mercilessly because they truly think that everything that isn't Dalek should perish."

"Okay," Rose said slowly. "Okay, so then… haven't you got any weapons to defeat them?"

"There are only a handful of weapons known across the universe to even land a scratch on their armour, Rose, and none of them are here," said the Doctor with urgency. "That is why you must leave."

"What did I say?" Rose said sharply. "'M not leavin' you!"

"Now _listen to me_!" he snapped, making Rose recoil— he'd never snapped at her before. "I've encountered Daleks before. They've killed countless people, and I'll not have you added to that count!"

"You'll protect me, remember?" Rose said cheekily, echoing his words from Madame Tussauds.

The Doctor's entire face hardened, and they glared at each other for a full five minutes before the Doctor seceded. "Fine. But you will listen to _me_, do you understand? If I tell you to run, you run, no matter what, yes?"

"Aye aye, mon capitain," Rose grinned, tongue in teeth.

He dove down and sucked her tongue into his mouth, kissing her so furiously her head bumped back against the wall. To Rose's horror, it felt a lot like a goodbye kiss. When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead against hers and smoothed back her hair, breathing heavily despite his earlier claims of a 'respiratory bypass'. "Come on," he murmured, finally taking her hand and turning back to the door. "Let's go find Harkness and the others."

He opened the door slowly and peered out into the hall, making sure there weren't any Dalek things running around. With an abrupt gesture and a tug on her hand, he led her out into the hall and back the way they came, towards a service outline map of the base pinned to the wall.

"The holding cells are just four rooms over," Rose said, following the path with her finger. "We should—"

An odd whirring sound suddenly started to echo in the corridor, and the Doctor yanked her into the closest room out of view. The whirring continued to grow louder, and Rose risked a peek around the corner and was utterly shocked by what she saw. Something that looked a lot like a skirted pepperpot with an eyestalk was tottering down the corridor, its 'back' turned to them. The Doctor pulled her back at once, silently scolding her with a glare. Rose glared right back at him, even though she was confused as to why a whirring dome-thing was the most dangerous thing in the universe. The humming sound faded the further the Dalek went down the corridor, until the Doctor loosened his tight grip on her and beckoned for her to follow. They ducked through the next four rooms, which were all filled with discarded weapons, until they reached the holding cells. There was only one Dalek on guard, but over its domed head Rose could see Jack, Ianto, Gwen and Owen chained up inside one of the holding cells. They looked a bit worse for wear but otherwise unharmed.

"How are we gonna get rid of that Dalek?" Rose whispered.

"I have an idea," the Doctor muttered back. With a firm 'stay there' look, he circled around the corridor out of sight. Rose jumped when she heard a loud explosion from the other end of the holding cells; the Dalek whipped its eyestalk around and whirred out of the holding cells and into the other room. The Doctor emerged behind her, looking bedraggled. "That'll only buy us three minutes or so, so we have to hurry."

Rose nodded and followed him towards the cell holding her friends. They had all craned their necks to see what had caused all the commotion, but they all whipped their heads back when Rose hurried forward and the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver thing at the lock on the cell.

"Rosie!" Jack whisper-yelped, beaming at her despite looking like he'd just been put through a sawmill.

"We're gettin' you lot out of here," Rose whispered back, beaming just as grandly as the Doctor set on unlocking their chains.

Despite the last month being a tense one, once they were let out of their chains Gwen and Ianto flung themselves toward Rose and pulled her into a tight hug each, and even Owen looked happy to see her (which was saying something). As they crept out of the holding cell and then broke out into a run, Rose pressed her earpiece and said happily into it, "We've got them, Tosh. I'm bringing them back to the transmat site."

"Oh thank God," she heard Tosh sigh on the other end, followed by Jackie's loud and pride-filled voice chattering in the background, "Told ya my Rose could do it!"

They arrived at the transmat site, and Jack frowned with confusion when Rose didn't stand beside them, instead keeping her place next to the Doctor. "Aren't you coming with us, Rosie?"

Rose shook her head. "Something's goin' on here that the Doctor and I need to find out."

"Rose, perhaps you should—" the Doctor started to say.

"No Doctor," she said sharply, giving him a sideways glare that practically screamed 'and that's final'. "Now, when you get back to Torchwood, Tosh is waiting for you to brief her. She—"

The Doctor letting go of her hand interrupted her, but before she could turn around to give him a questioning look she found herself being shoved into Jack's arms. In a flash of golden light and a nauseous, disoriented feeling, Rose found herself on top of Jack on the Torchwood floor.

"Wh—?" came out of Rose's mouth, garbled, before she realised just what had happened. The Doctor had sent her away. With an angry grunt, Rose tried to hurl herself off the ground and bolt in her disorientation, but ended up slamming into a desk and toppling over again. With as much determination as she could muster while barely conscious, she ordered, "Take me back."

"Rose, are you okay?" Jack asked worriedly

"TAKE ME BACK!" Rose shouted, shaking her head to clear the fog and standing up unsteadily.

"I can't," Tosh said, sounding terrified. "He's blocked the transmat somehow. I can't send you back."

* * *

The Doctor watched her disappear in the flash of gold with heavy hearts and a lump in his throat. He wished he could have given her another kiss before sending her away, but that would have tipped his hand. Still, he found a little bit of solace knowing she was safe, where the Daleks couldn't possibly get her. Drawing himself up, he turned back to the corridor and headed down it. If he could locate a control room, he could fill the military base with a high frequency delta wave and kill all of the Daleks in one—

"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!"

The electronic voice echoed in the narrow corridor, stuttering both of his hearts. Turning around slowly to face the Dalek, he said darkly, "I am the Doctor."

"THE DOCTOR?!" screeched the Dalek, flinging its eyestalk around frantically. "THE DOCTOR IS AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS!"

"Yes, yes, 'exterminate' and everything," the Doctor said irritably. "What are you doing on this base?"

"YOU WILL COME WITH ME," it said instead of answering.

Turning around it whirred down the corridor. The Doctor frowned and followed obediently. This was not typical Dalek behaviour— it should have tried to kill him straight away. The Dalek led him into a dimly lit armoury, all the weapons stripped off the walls, and the room was forested with Daleks. In the very centre was a grotesque-looking old man, hairless and gnarled, both eyes burned away and apparently replaced by one glowing blue eye on his forehead. The only visible parts of him were his torso and above, his lower half concealed in what appeared to be the bottom part of a regular Dalek.

"Who is this?" rasped out of the old man's throat.

"THE DOCTOR."

The mere mention of his name sent the group of Daleks into havoc— they whirled their eyestalks around and shouted phrases like, "EXTERMINATE!" and, "THE DOCTOR IS AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS!"

"SILENCE!" boomed the old man, and the Daleks obediently ceased their ruckus. "You are the Doctor?"

The Doctor drew himself up. "Yes."

The man smirked, his entire face wrinkling in the process as his electric blue eye swept over the Doctor's frame. "The renegade Time Lord, exiled from Gallifrey. I thought this would lure you out."

"Who are you?" demanded the Doctor.

"I am the God of the Daleks," the man hissed egotistically. "I am their Emperor, their _creator. _I am Davros."

* * *

"Try boosting the signal gain!" Rose demanded, near hysterical.

"I did, Rose," Tosh all but wailed.

"Do it again!"

"It's at maximum, Rosie, it's not going any higher," Jack said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Rose shrugged it off but gave him as gentle a look as she could muster while this angry. "Get yourselves cleaned up. Go home, get something to eat. I'll handle things. _Now, _Jack, and that's an order," she snapped, the moment Jack looked like he was going to protest. Sticking out his lower jaw, Jack stalked off with Gwen (Owen had already taken off long before Rose had given the order) and Rose turned back to Tosh. "Are there any coordinated transmats we can try? One that'll bypass the block the Doctor put on it?" When Tosh shook her head, Rose scowled. "What about Vortex Manipulators?"

Tosh basically blanched right then and there. "Those are highly experimental."

"I don't care— get me one now," Rose demanded.

As Tosh flocked off to the Vaults to grant her demand, Jackie gripped her daughter's shoulder in the same place Jack had. "Sweetheart, maybe this is for the best."

Rose rounded on her mother. "In what way is this for the best? The Doctor's up there, thousands of miles away, on a military base with a bunch of bloody aliens that are literally the most dangerous thing in existence. Y'know how I know they're that dangerous? _The Doctor _told me! An' now he's up there with no backup an' no plan, an' I'm stuck here!"

"Listen to me," said Jackie firmly. "God knows I have hated that man, but right now, I love him and do you know why? Because he did the right thing. He sent you back to me."

"But Mum, he's gonna _die_," Rose whimpered, lower lip starting to tremble uncontrollably as tears welled up in her eyes. "He's all by himself and he's gonna die without me."

A worried-looking Tosh re-emerged holding something that looked like a beeping wristband. "I really don't like this," Tosh informed her worriedly, even as she strapped it on for her.

"Neither do I," Rose admitted, tears stemmed for the moment. "But I've gotta give it a go." Punching in the coordinates, Rose prayed to whatever God might be listening before pressing a large quadrilateral-shaped button. However, instead of the laser-blasted grey walls of Bad Wolf 1 appearing before her eyes, she found herself standing on the front lawn of the UNIT field headquarters.

As she stared at it in horror, Tosh's voice crackled through the earpiece she was still wearing. "Rose? Did it work?"

"No," she whispered, despite there being no reason to be quiet. "Stupid thing just took me to UNIT."

"You tried, sweetheart," said Jackie's voice in lieu of Tosh's.

Unwilling to hear any more, Rose lifted her hand to her earpiece to take it off and throw it somewhere, but she froze when she noticed something on the sidewalk some few feet away. A little boy was doodling on the sidewalk with play chalk, and on the pavement he'd scrawled the words 'BAD WOLF' in large pink letters. In the sky, a plane was flying a banner that read 'BAD WOLF' against the skyline. On the building adjacent were spray-painted 'BAD WOLF' over and over again. Everywhere she looked was Bad Wolf, in some form.

"Rose, are you there?" Jackie squawked on the other end.

"Bad Wolf," Rose murmured aloud.

"What?"

"Everywhere the Doctor and I go, there are the words 'Bad Wolf', like they're following us," Rose explained hurriedly.

"So? It's just a phrase. It's just words."

"I thought it was a warning," she muttered, talking more to herself than to her mother now. "Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's a message. The same words written down over and over ever since I met the Doctor. It's a link between me and him. Bad Wolf here, Bad Wolf there…"

"But if it's a message, what's it saying?" Tosh wondered.

Rose looked back to the UNIT HQ. "It's telling me I can get back. The least I can do is help him escape."

"How're you gonna do that, then?" asked Jackie.

Rose managed a smile, despite the others being unable to see it. "I've got a sentient time-and-spaceship at my disposal, don't I?"

* * *

"Davros?" the Doctor repeated. "I've never heard of you."

"Yet you've heard of my creations," Davros said swiftly, sweeping his gnarled arms in the directions of the near-motionless Daleks. "They've encountered you many times, from what I have heard. And I've heard plenty about you, Doctor."

"Oh?"

"Yes… you see, apparently you're an exile of your own people," Davros smirked. "Forced to live on that godforsaken rock, disposed of like vermin. Which makes you the perfect messenger."

"And what is the message?" said the Doctor calmly, though his eyes flashed with a brewing storm.

"You will call upon Gallifrey," replied Davros, clasping his hands with practicality as he straightened triumphantly in his Dalek-perch, "and you will tell them that the Daleks declare war on them. You will tell them that it would be wise to surrender at once, as the Daleks have a superior arsenal."

Before Davros could go any further, the Doctor interrupted with a tone dripping in incredulity. "You can't possibly be serious."

Davros' eye narrowed as best it could. "Completely. Take a look for yourself."

He gestured one hand at the horizontal window to his left. The Daleks moved aside, creating a path to allow the Doctor to stride up to the window and peer out. His hearts nearly flew out of his mouth at the sight that awaited him.

An entire Dalek fleet. Literally hundreds of thousands of Dalek ships, suspended, surrounding the military base and stretching as far as the eye could see. As the Doctor gaped at them in horror, Davros dissolved into cackling laughter, and the Doctor knew that if this enormous Dalek fleet were to attack Gallifrey, the most devastating war of time would befall the entire universe. And it would be the last.

Gallifrey was doomed.

* * *

Rose ignored the two guards who watched her bolt by with looks of shock, heading straight for her laboratory. She knew now that the Vortex Manipulator hadn't malfunctioned— the TARDIS had consciously drawn her to that particular spot, to show her she still had a chance. Bursting into the lab, she tried hard not to look at her things commingled with the Doctor's — so casually, like the Doctor was just around the corner working on his hovercraft or cooking her breakfast — and headed straight into the TARDIS console room. Unlike any regular day, the TARDIS didn't greet her with a welcoming hum or a flicker of her lights, and if she had, Rose wouldn't have noticed. She practically hurled herself towards the console, hugging the stunted time rotor for comfort.

"I know it was you who brought me here," Rose whispered, and the humming grew gentle and affirmative. "He's up there, on that base full of bloody Daleks, all by himself an' he's gonna die. Can you help me?" An image swam before her eyes, shocking her so much at first that she gasped and bounded backwards. The TARDIS's hum grew soothing, and Rose relaxed. "You're telepathic?" Another affirming hum. "Okay, sorry. Er, show me again?" The image appeared in her mind again, of the right side of the console opening like a hatch. Rose blinked. "I just have to open up that… thing?" A third verification.

Inhaling nervously, Rose circled the console directly towards where the TARDIS had indicated. Slipping her hands underneath it, Rose tried to tug it upwards, the first time to no avail. Readjusting her grip and leaning her leg against the underside of the console for leverage, Rose took a deep breath and pulled upward again.

The console swung open, and Rose was bathed in an unearthly golden glow. She tried to close her eyes against the brightness but found herself unable to look away, the golden essence locking her gaze and pouring itself into her. It reverberated in her head, an achingly beautiful song playing eternally in her mind. She was everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere. She was the most powerful thing in the world, and she could see everything. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she started to panic.

_Do not be afraid, my Wolf._

The soothing voice echoed in her head along with the singing, and Rose inexplicably recognised it as the TARDIS's. She reached out towards the voice, and the singing grew louder as the Wolf in her mind howled with objective.

Nobody saw the TARDIS dematerialise inside the laboratory.

* * *

"Now, listen to me," said the Doctor urgently for the second time that day, turning away from the Dalek fleet to face Davros again. "You mustn't attack Gallifrey."

"And why not?" smirked Davros with annoying superiority.

"It'll destroy us both! We'll eradicate each other and take out innocent planets with us! It'll be the start of a Time War!"

"The _Last _Time War, Doctor," Davros corrected, and the Doctor wanted to jump up and throttle him. "And it will be a great one. Now, you will be sent to Gallifrey to—"

The grinding sound of the TARDIS materialising interrupted the man, and the Doctor watched in utter astonishment as the outline of his ship became clearer and clearer at the end of the room.

"ALERT! TARDIS MATERIALISING!" The Daleks were in mass panic at the sight of it, flinging their eyestalks around and shouting, "EXTERMINATE!" as much as they could.

"I thought your ship was incapacitated!" fumed Davros, glaring at the Doctor. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"I—" the Doctor stuttered. 'I have no idea', was what he'd meant to say, but the TARDIS door blowing open with a loud bang cut him off.

An almost unbearably bright golden light flooded from the TARDIS, along with twisting tendrils of energy the Doctor recognised as the essence of the Time Vortex. Silhouetted against the blinding light was none other than a glowing Rose Tyler.

"Rose…" he whispered in horror. "What have you done?"

She stepped towards him, the tendrils snaking around her like protective vines. Golden light was pouring from her eyes, and when she opened her mouth to speak, her voice came out echoing and distorted. "I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me."

"You looked into the Time Vortex!" he realised, terrified. "Rose, no one's meant to see that!"

"This is an abomination!" Davros shouted furiously.

"EXTERMINATE!" screeched one of the Daleks, aiming its laser at her and firing.

Rose's head snapped up and her hand raised, and to the Doctor's utter astonishment the jet of red light was stopped by nothing but her palm. Davros was gaping and the Daleks backed up a few inches. Turning back to the Doctor, who was staring at her in awe, she said, "I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words…" She trailed off for a moment, raising her hand up to the phrase 'BAD WOLF 1 ARMOURY'. The former two words seemed to float contentedly off of the wall before disappearing as she waved her hand. "… I scatter them… in time and space. A message to lead myself here."

She was the most intelligent, clever, beautiful thing the Doctor had ever seen. He'd always been astounded by her brilliance, but for her to have figured out what Bad Wolf meant when he himself hadn't had any idea took the biscuit. And now she was coursing with all the power of the Vortex, to save him. This snapped him to attention. "Rose, you're got to stop this!" he said urgently, his fear returning. "You've got the entire Vortex running through your head. You're going to burn!"

She frowned at him. "I want you safe. My Doctor." He could only gape like an idiot, jaw on the ground, as tears streamed from her golden eyes. "Protected from the false God," she added, turning her eyes on Davros.

"You cannot hurt me," he hissed. "I am immortal!"

"You are tiny," she said almost dreamily. "I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence… and I divide them." She raised her hand again, eyes burning gold. The Dalek that had initially shot at her began to disintegrate gently into golden powder. "Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War will never dawn."

The entire group of Daleks in the room began to dissolve around the Doctor. Davros, red with fury, yelled, "I WILL NOT DIE! I CANNOT DIE!" As the near-million fleet of ships outside crumbled away into space dust, sweeping away into nothingness, Davros and his Dalek-perch also dissolved away into obscurity, leaving Rose and the Doctor alone with nothing but the golden tendrils.

"Rose, you've done it, now stop," pleaded the Doctor, stepping towards her. "Just let go. Please, love, it's going to kill you. Let go."

She stared at him blankly, golden light still seeping through her eyes, making the tracks of tears on her cheeks shine. Then, with a gentle smile that the Doctor could classify as the epitome of love, she whispered, "For you."

Rose jerked back with a cry as the golden tendrils receded back into the heart of the TARDIS, slipping from her eyes and joining the rest. As the console swung itself closed, Rose's normal brown eyes rolled back into her head and she started to tilt forward. The Doctor hurried forward and caught her in his arms, lowering her to the floor so he could settle her in his lap, brushing back her hair.

"Oh, my precious girl," he whispered.

* * *

She dreamed of golden butterflies and singing flowers, and it was far more pleasant than when she woke up to find a sonic buzzing in her face. Groaning at the ache in her head, she swatted the sonic away and muttered, "Doctor, 'm sleeping."

"You're awake!"

That was definitely not the Doctor's voice. As a matter of fact, it sounded oddly familiar… Rose opened her eyes to see a nervous-looking Brax hovering over her face. She decided she was dreaming — since Brax would _never _look this vulnerable around her — and rolled over to go back to sleep. Then she realised she wasn't in her bedroom. She was in some sort of high-ceilinged stoned room lined with red tapestries and gold carpets. She sat up slowly, wincing at the ache behind her left eye. "Where the sodden hell am I?"

"A chamber in the Gallifreyan Citadel," said Brax earnestly, taking a step back from her bedside and looking almost respectful. "We've been examining you for three days."

Rose glared daggers at Brax, who actually cowered a bit. "An' what exactly gave you the jurisdiction to yank me out of my life and bring me to Gallifrey?" She remembered something. "Hold on, the Doctor told me once that humans aren't allowed on Gallifrey!"

"You… aren't human anymore," Brax said. "Do you not remember what transpired?"

Rose thought hard, and the memories flooded back like water through a broken dam. She remembered opening the heart of the TARDIS with her help; she remembered seeing and knowing everything, though when she tried to remember something specifically, her head ached; she remembered golden light and the song of the universe; she remembered turning the Daleks and their creator into dust with a wave of her hand; and she remembered letting go of infinite power for her Doctor. With a gentle smile she nodded. "I remember now." Then she froze. "Hang on, I'm not human?"

"When you absorbed the Time Vortex, your human DNA was imprinted with the essence of Time," Brax said quietly. "The residual energy that was left behind when you relinquished the power is mostly inert, but…"

"But some of it isn't?" Rose asked worriedly, trying not to panic.

"Some of it is altering your DNA structure," said Brax. "In essence, your lifespan has lengthened exponentially, and you have the ability to heal yourself rapidly."

Rose stayed quiet, absorbing this new information. She was extremely aware of the cons of this new transformation — outliving all of her friends, her family — but all she could really concentrate on was the fact that she wouldn't die centuries before her Doctor did. She'd been worried for months about growing old and dying, leaving the Doctor behind, but now…

"Where is the Doctor?" she asked, wringing her hands.

"This way, Lady Arkytior," Brax said gaily, shocking Rose by helping her off of the bed.

Wondering if Brax was suffering from a haemorrhage or something, Rose shut her mouth instead of questioning her new nickname and followed him into the adjacent chamber. No Doctor in sight, but the room was filled with Time Lords dressed in the same high-necked red and gold robes that Brax was wearing. To her immense astonishment, they gaped at her when she entered the room and then sank to their knees into unmistakable bows.

"Wh—?" Rose started to gape, but Brax simply strode through the bowing Time Lords as though it was expected and Rose shut her mouth.

He led her through the throng down a long red-carpeted corridor. Rose's heart soared— at the end of the hall was the TARDIS, which hummed in greeting in her head, and next to the TARDIS was the Doctor arguing furiously with an irritated-looking Time Lord.

"Doctor!" Rose shouted happily, sidestepping Brax to sprint towards him.

He snapped his head up, gaping at her and ignoring when the Time Lord he'd just been bickering with sank into a bow as well. "_Rose_!"

The two of them ran to each other, meeting halfway in the hall as Rose tossed her arms around his neck and he hoisted her up by her bum and twirled her in happy circles, both of them laughing. Despite his brother being right in front of them, the Doctor set her down and dipped her back to kiss her soundly. Brax blushed red enough to match his robes and the nameless Time Lord looked a bit put out. When he released her, Rose took a step back and swatted him over the head, much to everyone's astonishment.

"What the hell was that for?" he spluttered, eyes wide.

"For sendin' me away," she said sharply, giving him a glare.

The Doctor had the gall to look sheepish just as a voice from behind them said, "I do hate to break up this reunion, but we have matters to settle, Lady Arkytior."

Rose turned around to see an older looking man with receding, willowy white hair, dressed in robes similar to Brax's, but instead were white with silver and gold lining. The Doctor stiffened beside her just as Brax and the other Time Lord sank into bows similar to the ones they'd given Rose. "Lord President," said the Doctor curtly.

"Doctor," replied the Lord President just as abruptly, before turning his eyes on Rose. "Lady Arkytior, I assume you are aware of the events that transpired three days prior?"

"Yes," Rose said awkwardly, wondering if she should have added 'sir' or not.

"You are aware that you prevented a potentially devastating attack on Gallifrey from the Daleks?"

The Doctor beamed at her proudly and Rose flushed. "Er, I s'pose."

The Lord President looked amused. "You've saved countless lives, Lady Arkytior. The Gallifreyan High Council owes you a great debt. Is there anything we can do to repay you?"

Rose opened her mouth to decline, but an idea occurred to her. With a squeeze to the Doctor's hand and a crooked smile she said, "Lift the Doctor's exile."

The Doctor gaped at her and even Brax looked shocked. The Lord President merely raised his eyebrows. "You want nothing else?" Rose grinned and shook her head. He looked a little relieved, as though he'd expected her to ask for something enormous. "Very well. Braxiatel, reset the TARDIS's dematerialisation codes," he ordered, and with a quick bow Brax headed into the TARDIS. "If that is all, I will take my leave. You have the Council's utmost thanks."

"Er, you're welcome," Rose smiled uncertainly, and the Doctor was beaming again.

"It is done," said Brax briskly, re-emerging from the TARDIS.

The Lord President nodded. "Excellent. With me, Brax, Davin."

Rose watched amusedly as Brax and the other Time Lord bowed tersely to her before following the Lord President down the hall and out of sight. The Doctor suddenly scooped her into a giant hug, raining kisses over her face. "I love you," he told her, beaming bright enough to light up the room.

"I love you, too," Rose giggled, scrunching her nose when he placed a kiss there. "What was that for?"

"You saved my life, my planet, and now you've lifted my exile," said the Doctor reverently. "Rose Tyler, you are a goddess." She flushed and ducked her head, which he happily placed a kiss on top of.

"Er, thank you," said Rose. "Why did the Time Lords keep calling me 'Lady Arkytior'?"

"You've earned their reverence, Rose," said the Doctor, beaming with pride. "You're now a Lady in their eyes. As for the name 'Arkytior'… it means 'rose' in High Gallifreyan," he added, smoothing back her hair. "It was my granddaughter's name, you know."

"Then I'm honoured," Rose grinned, tongue in teeth, before remembering something. "Oh my God. Mum!"

"What about your mother?" the Doctor asked confusedly.

"She has no idea what happened!" Rose said in horror. "An' I've been here for three days… she's got to be beside herself!"

The Doctor merely grinned. "Time machine, Rose, remember?"

Rose's face lit up in remembrance. "Oh yeah."

Grabbing his hand and ignoring his chuckling, Rose tugged him into the TARDIS, who flickered her lights excitedly at their arrival. Rose let go of the Doctor to hug the time rotor, which he watched her do with amusement before punching in the coordinates. The time rotor began to pump underneath Rose's arms as the grinding sound started up again.

"WHAT THE SODDEN HELL?!" screeched from outside the TARDIS in what was unmistakably Jackie Tyler's voice.

The Doctor cringed and Rose poked her head out to see that they were in the Torchwood building. It was clear that Rose had barely been gone a few minutes, since Jackie was holding a fresh cup of tea and everybody was still in the clothes they had been when Rose had left. "Erm, I can explain."

* * *

The Doctor entered the galley, and to his immense astonishment found Rose with her hands stuck in a soapy sink full of dishes. "What on Earth are you doing, Rose?" the Doctor asked amusedly.

"Washing dishes," she said, giving him a look.

"You do know the TARDIS can take care of that, don't you?"

"Yeah, but she shouldn't have to do it all the time, an' it's about time somebody spoiled the TARDIS," Rose said idly as she scrubbed at a plate, missing the Doctor beam of veneration.

"Honestly, you just absorbed the Time Vortex, dissolved all the Daleks into dust, gave back the power and earned the reverence of the Gallifreyan Council in less than an hour, and the only thing you can concentrate on is doing the dishes so the TARDIS won't have to," he said fondly, embracing her from behind and nuzzling his nose into her neck. "What did your mother say about travelling in time with me?"

"She doesn't believe it's true," Rose giggled. "Thinks whatever happened with the Daleks messed up my head. Y'know, we could always just go back in time and do something silly to her to prove it."

"Maybe we could act as if we're circus carnies and pretend she's a vicious lion," the Doctor drawled, and Rose dropped a plate with a splash as she collapsed into giggles. "So, where should we go first?"

"I remember somebody promising me Delphon," Rose grinned, wagging her eyebrows with emphasis.

"You're absolutely right, my dear," he beamed, tugging her wet hands out of the sink and drying them with a towel so he could grab one and tug her into the console room. "First stop— Delphon!"

And as they materialised on the planet waiting to be explored, the Doctor took her hand and led her into the beginning of forever.

**A/N: Last chapter of the third installment of the Forever and More series :) Dialogue taken from Parting of the Ways is © RTD (oh I miss you so) and the BBC. Special thanks to bananas-are-good-9 (ofc :D) wishbones (sorry about your cereal XD) DeepBlue-sama, jenn008 and a Guest. In the next installment we will move on to Four.**

**The Lord President mentioned above is the one from the episode The Three Doctors, portrayed by Roy Purcell. I just gave him a name :)**


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